Wallace, William S., Jr.

ORAL HISTORY OF WILLIAM S. WALLACE, JR.
Interviewed by Don Hunnicutt
Filmed by BBB Communications, LLC.
November 16, 2012
MR. HUNNICUTT: This interview is for the Center of Oak Ridge Oral History. The date is November 16, 2012. I am Don Hunnicutt in the home of William Wallace, 117 Quincy Avenue, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to take an oral history about living in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Bill, please state your full name, place of birth, and date.
MR. WALLACE: My name is William Spence Wallace, Jr. I was born on January 19, 1942, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Baroness Erlanger Hospital.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Please state your father's name and place of birth and date.
MR. WALLACE: My father's name was William Spence Wallace, Sr. He went by Spence. I'd go by Bill. He was born in Pendleton, South Carolina, in 1920, May 28th.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Your mother's maiden name and place of birth and date.
MR. WALLACE: My mother’s maiden name was Marjorie Allie Beazley and she was born on January 20, 1920, in Nashville, Tennessee.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your father’s school history?
MR. WALLACE: It was kind of varied because he grew up at the time the Great Depression came along. My grandfather had to move a couple of times in order to keep the family going. He actually started school at Sunny Side School at Chattanooga, and from there they moved to Hillsboro, Alabama. Actually, they moved to Pendleton, South Carolina, first and then to Moulton County in Alabama, and stayed with my grandmother’s family there until the Depression was over. Then they moved back to Chattanooga.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your father’s name?
MR. WALLACE: My father’s name was William Spence Wallace and he had a varied working opportunity in his early life, when he first got married. I think one of the things was that he worked at one of the Volunteer Ordnance Works, which was known as the TN T Plant in Chattanooga. There’s a Volkswagen plant on that site now, and I think that’s how he got his job here in Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your mother’s schooling?
MR. WALLACE: She had two years of college. Both of them had two years of college at the University of Chattanooga.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you have sisters and brothers?
MR. WALLACE: I have two sisters. One is deceased. She died, at age 19, of leukemia here in Oak Ridge. And the other sister lives in Washington, DC.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What are their names?
MR. WALLACE: Virginia Lee Wallace is the sister that is the youngest, under me. And then the youngest of all three of us was Molly Susan Wallace.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where were they born?
MR. WALLACE: They were both born here in Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Your father, what kind of work did he do before he came to Oak Ridge?
MR. WALLACE: He worked, first of all, for the A&P Company then he worked for an insurance company. I think it was Life and Casualty. Then he worked out at the TNT Plant.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you know how he got a job at Y-12?
MR. WALLACE: Evidently, through the efforts of them trying to find people that had some chemical experience and since that was part of what he was doing out at Volunteer Ordnance Works at the TNT Plant. Evidently, that was how he got the job up here.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your mother work before during that period of time?
MR. WALLACE: No. I have a work slip where she worked for Sears at one time, but it was before they got married. I don’t think she had but one job from the time she got married until she died.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember where they got married and when?
MR. WALLACE: They got married in Chattanooga, Tennessee, at my mother’s home on Brookfield Avenue, 301. The house is no longer there. It’s been torn down and is a parking lot. It was kind of interesting because her sister was the maid of honor and she wore black.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So how did your family get to Oak Ridge?
MR. WALLACE: Dad came here first, as were most of the people at the time that he came with. He hired in at first, in January 1944, lived in a dormitory for a while until they were able to find some housing for him. As soon as they got a flat top available for us then mother and I joined him, which was in March of that year.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how you came to Oak Ridge, what type of vehicle?
MR. WALLACE: On a bus.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where did the bus let you off?
MR. WALLACE: We came in to Knoxville and then got a local bus from Knoxville here. Dad had already secured the passes that we needed to get through the gates over here.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How old were you at the time?
MR. WALLACE: I was two.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, the first house was a flat top that the family lived in?
MR. WALLACE: We lived at 61-B Outer Drive and there was a loop that was right there off of Outer Drive, underneath the water towers. I have a picture of it right here. That’s the first house that we lived in and there’s the loop we lived on. The house was the third house right here.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about living in the flat top?
MR. WALLACE: It was cozy. It was good and hot in the summertime and cold in the wintertime.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what the flat top was made out of?
MR. WALLACE: Plywood. They used to assemble them down here where the First Baptist Church is right now. They constructed them in sections, put them on flatbed trucks, and hauled them up to the sites where they had already put the foundations up. It was amazing to watch them set those things together.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How long did you live in the flat top?
MR. WALLACE: We lived in the flat top one year. Dad was then drafted into the Navy. They told him when he came to Oak Ridge that he wouldn’t be up for grabs, among other things they told him that wasn’t quite, exactly the truth. Dad was one of them. There were several that were drafted out of Y-12, and other plants too.
So, we lost our housing since he wasn’t working at the plant. We moved out in 1945, went back to Chattanooga. He went into the Navy and stayed nine months. The war was over and so with him having some medical problems, they decided they would let him go home. So after nine months they gave him an honorable medical discharge and he went back to Chattanooga.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about your dad’s job when he first came to Oak Ridge?
MR. WALLACE: Actually, the only thing that I remember was that he worked strange hours. He worked a rotating shift, like most people did here. This place was like an anthill. Everybody worked shift work except a few elites that only worked the day shift. I didn’t know when he was going to be home. I didn’t know when he was going to be sleeping. That went on for a number of years, even after he came back a second time to Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever recall your dad saying anything about his job, what he did?
MR. WALLACE: No. In fact, I don’t think my mother ever knew what my dad did out at one of the plants, and I don’t think she ever has. I knew what was going on because being raised here in Oak Ridge there was a lot of stuff that you just, kind of, knew. When the incident happened out at the plant in 1958, I was able to access the technical library up here when I was doing some research for a school project. I found a book that was on that particular incident that had been declassified. My dad came unglued when I brought it home because he said; “You’re not supposed to have that.” I said, “Well, it’s declassified.” I’ve got a copy of it in my files here.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, security was something that, really, everybody lived in those days.
MR. WALLACE: Absolutely. It was kind of interesting. If it was a shiny, new car and had good tires on it, it belonged to the FBI.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That sounds right.
MR. WALLACE: And if you saw one of those cars down the street that meant either somebody had said something they should not have said or they were up for some kind of promotion.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was the first school you attended in Oak Ridge?
MR. WALLACE: Pine Valley. Started there in kindergarten.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about starting kindergarten?
MR. WALLACE: Found my first girlfriend in kindergarten. We have some 8mm movies of me walking up the walkway hand and hand with that little girl.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, where were you living at that time?
MR. WALLACE: Well, that time was the second time we had come back to Oak Ridge in 1946, early in January of 1946. We were living on Pallas Road.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did your mother feel, do you think, about having to come back after she had to leave and things were not really like they were supposed to be the first time?
MR. WALLACE: It was better because Dad had already had two promotions and he was making a little bit more money than he had to start with and we were going to get a bigger house.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So that made her happy?
MR. WALLACE: Oh, yeah. She was a very happy housewife.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of house was the house on Pallas?
MR. WALLACE: We moved into a B house.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Describe a B house to me.
MR. WALLACE: All housing in Oak Ridge, you got according to the size of your family. This is what the house looked like when we first moved in. In fact, the house was empty when this picture was taken. It was interesting to watch the construction that was going on in Oak Ridge. The fact of it was that they could go in with a bulldozer, scratch out a road, and in 7-10 days there would be people living in houses on that street.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So how many bedrooms were in the B house?
MR. WALLACE: B house had two. Usually A house had one, B house had two, C house had three, D house had four. You had to be pretty far up, or a big family, to get a D house.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How is the house heated?
MR. WALLACE: That house, and the one that I am living in now, were originally heated with coal. There was a great big coal furnace in the utility room.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about the delivery of coal?
MR. WALLACE: Well, it was very noisy. You could hear them coming with those big, old – usually a dump truck kind of a truck – that came by, that brought it. There were several workers, usually they were black, and they had – looked like—bushel, canvas baskets that they carried on their shoulders. They’d go out to the truck and they had a chute on the back of it where they would set the basket down, open the chute, fill it up with coal, bring it to the house, and then dump it in the coal bin.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was the coal bin located?
MR. WALLACE: In that house, it was located right next to the back door and the same on this house here. This used to be the backdoor, here, and the coal bin was right next to that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a fireplace in that house?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, there was. We had a real nice fireplace. We always enjoyed it. Sometimes we’d burn coal in it and sometimes we’d burn wood if we could get some wood.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall, back in those days, your mother washing the walls down in the house from the coal dust?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, it was dirty everywhere; on the porch where we played, our clothes, our faces, everything had coal soot on it because everybody in town used coal.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you do with the ashes out of the coal stove?
MR. WALLACE: They went in the driveway. When you couldn’t get gravel you used the clinkers in the driveway.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about the Pine Valley School. What do you remember about some of your teachers and the classes and the things that happened in school?
MR. WALLACE: I remember the kindergarten teacher and her name was Brown. The first grade teacher was Ms. Mashburn. I don’t remember my second grade teacher but my third grade teacher was Ms. Baird, Ms. Ruth Cates Baird. I had her twice in the school system. I had her in the third grade. She went back to school and got everything in a higher degree and ended up in high school. I had her for senior English in high school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall whether these teachers were young girls or older ladies?
MR. WALLACE: Everybody in Oak Ridge was young. There weren’t any old people here. I think the average age for most people was about 24-26 and most of the families had, either, 2 or 3 children and they were all small and about the same age. Everybody made about the same so there wasn’t too much hoity-toity stuff going on in Oak Ridge except in some of the higher ranks of folks out at the plants.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was there a lot of children in each class?
MR. WALLACE: Oh, yes. Classrooms were full. I think I’ve got one picture here. Here was – this I think was -- either the first or second grade. I‘m not sure what all we were dressed up for but…
MR. HUNNICUTT: This was at Pine Valley?
MR. WALLACE: This was at Pine Valley. My fourth grade teacher that I had there; I had her three times and never failed a grade. I had her in fourth grade and then middle year of fourth grade we moved over to this house and she moved the next year. I had her in the fifth grade and then I had her in high school. She was a Home Economics teacher and I took Home Ec. one year.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Very interesting. That’s an odd situation. Do you remember a recess going to Pine Valley? What did you do going out to recess?
MR. WALLACE: We went out and ran. I mean, it was just, everybody ran. We played tag; we played softball, baseball, or football or whatever it was. There was a big sandbox that was there in the back that we enjoyed being in. There were monkey bars. It was a good playground and we just enjoyed it. It was on the backside. I think they built some more buildings back in that area and that playground is no longer there. I remember that and also, one of the most outstanding things I remember about Pine Valley, were the bomb drills.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Explain about that.
MR. WALLACE: Well, we had two kinds of drills. We had fire drills and we had bomb drills. In fire drills, we exited the building. In bomb drills we got in the hall and hunched down on the floor, curled up almost in a fetal position, and put our hands on the back of our necks. I think that happened until someone finally figured out if they ever dropped an atom bomb on us here there wasn't any place you could hide. I don't remember us having bomb drills after grammar school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what time class started and what time it ended?
MR. WALLACE: I don't remember what time. It seemed to me they didn't start till about 8 or 8:30, later then they do today. We got out, usually, around 3 o'clock.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was there a bell to indicate when class started and when class ended?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, a very loud bell. They were, evidently, all over the building in different places. I don't remember what the actual signal was but there was one sequence that they gave. The long bell was to dismiss class or start class and then there were short bursts of the bell for either fire drill or the bomb drill.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the classrooms have an intercom system so the teachers would contact the office?
MR. WALLACE: I don't think they did at all. I think you sent a student with a note somewhere, is what I remember. I don’t believe they were quite that far along. Now, when we got to Woodland, which was a newer school, they had intercoms in there that they could talk with the office from the classrooms.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a gym back in those days?
MR. WALLACE: Absolutely, we had gym. Sometimes we loved it and sometimes we hated it. But most of the time it was a good thing because it got us out of class.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What kind of activities did you do?
MR. WALLACE: Well, we played dodge ball, we played volleyball, we ran, we did calisthenics, and those were the particular things that I recall. And usually in the wintertime they had one session, in the older classes, of dancing.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about rope climbing? Were there ropes in the gym to climb?
MR. WALLACE: There were ropes to climb and that was one thing I could never do.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So it was an all-around Physical Education for the kids?
MR. WALLACE: It was and we had it on a very regular basis.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about school programs? Did you have plays and things of that nature?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, in fact, in the fourth grade -- I don't remember anything in the first, second, and third grade-- but I do remember in the fourth grade that we put on a Christmas Pageant. I got to be one of the Wiseman that year. But we also had a band in the fourth grade, beginner’s band. Ms. Carter, I don't remember her first name, but her name was Ms. Carter. She was the Music teacher there and she was very good. I took some lessons from her; piano lessons to start with, and then she had me take some trumpet lessons. That's where I got started.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you walk to school, back and forth, everyday?
MR. WALLACE: I did. Occasionally, I’d get to ride my bicycle, but not very often. It was because of the hills between here and there and the schools. Now, in Pine Valley I always walked over there. Never rode the school bus that I can ever remember.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How far away was the home from the school?
MR. WALLACE: I guess it was a quarter of a mile, in a straight shot. Course you could cut through some yards to get to it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about your mother grocery shopping when you lived in that particular house?
MR. WALLACE: Well, there two places to grocery shop. One was the little Pine Valley area. Each section of town had it's own little group of stores, shopping center. Usually there was a grocery store, a drug store, maybe a variety store, a barbershop, a beauty shop, and in some of them there was a fire truck.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did Pine Valley have a fire truck?
MR. WALLACE: No. We were close enough to Downtown, to Jackson Square, that they didn't put a fire truck there. But there was one in Grove Center.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you go shopping with your mom?
MR. WALLACE: Yes. We'd go to that grocery store there but the big grocery store was the A&P up in Jackson Square.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about going to the grocery store?
MR. WALLACE: It was the first store that was air-conditioned, I think, in Oak Ridge and that's why everybody liked to shop there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you find the people standing in lines, those days, for certain items?
MR. WALLACE: Almost everything. And that was common and nobody seemed to rile, grumble, or complain. The longest lines I think I remember was up at the Hamilton Bank up in Jackson Square because it was the only bank in town and everybody wanted to get their paycheck cashed. That line would stretch all the way across that front portico that's there between the two sections of Jackson Square.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did your mother wash her clothes when she lived there?
MR. WALLACE: There were washaterias all over town and you would gather your clothes up. If you were fortunate enough to have a car you went in your car, if you didn't you borrowed a vehicle. Sometimes you'd have to get a cab to go wash your clothes. There were no dryers. Every house had a clothesline. That was standard with every single house.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was there a concrete sink in the utility room for washing clothes?
MR. WALLACE: I guess we'd call them a utility sink that was in there. It was usually double concrete sink that was there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you like school when you went to Pine Valley?
MR. WALLACE: Oh, loved it. Loved school. Didn't like studying but I loved school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How was the neighborhood? Did the different people from all over the United States gathered in Oak Ridge, did they all get along in the neighborhoods?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah. Everybody was here for the same purpose, except for many of the foreigners -- and I call them foreigners because they were from another country sometimes. That actually will come in a little bit later in our interview. After we moved to this house over here because that was an interesting thing I'll tell you about that. I don't remember any foreigners living in the area where we lived on Pallas Road.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your dress like when you went to school? What did you wear?
MR. WALLACE: Today they call them t-shirts. We called them polo shirts back then. Sometimes there were shorts in the hotter times. There was no air-conditioning in any of the schools so we didn't have the slightest idea of what air-conditioning was when everything first started here. Rooms were squalid, particularly in September. School never started until Labor Day.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now in the wintertime you wore a coat to school, obviously. If I remember right, each room had somewhere that you put your personal belongings. Is that right?
MR. WALLACE: Sometimes they were cubby holes and they were coat racks all across the back of the room. Then below those were cubby holes and that's where you put your lunch if you brought your lunch, unless you were going to buy it in the cafeteria.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you went to Pine Valley, did Pine Valley have a cafeteria?
MR. WALLACE: I really don't remember. Mostly, I remember taking my lunch.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about if you needed to go to the bathroom while you were in class? Where did you go to use the restroom?
MR. WALLACE: In Pine Valley, we were very fortunate that between every two classrooms was a common bathroom. And you had to be sure that when you went in there that you closed the other door so that somebody in the other room didn't come in.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, in your young, youth age were you a healthy child or did you have to have doctor's visits?
MR. WALLACE: I don't recall any doctor's visits at home. When I was six, I had to have my tonsils out. I had a tremendous amount of sore throats. Today they’d call it strep throat, I guess. Until then I was kind of a sickly child, but once I got my tonsils out I was very rarely ever sick after that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember that experience in the hospital?
MR. WALLACE: Oh do I. That was when they used ether. The one thing I remember -- two things. One was when they were going to put me out they brought this little wire cage with gauze in it where they were going to drip the ether on. They put that over my mouth and my nose. And I remember grabbing that thing and throwing it because I didn't like the smell of the ether. Well, they finally held me down and got me asleep, took my tonsils out, and then the best part of it was all the Jell-O and ice cream that I had to eat. It was the only thing I could eat for a few days.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How long did you have to stay in the hospital?
MR. WALLACE: I don't think I stayed more than a day or so.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Back to your school at Pine Valley, you attended through the fifth grade? Is that correct?
MR. WALLACE: Halfway through the fourth grade.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Fourth grade, and then you came to Woodland?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, and then we moved over here to Woodland.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you live in Woodland?
MR. WALLACE: In this house here on Quincy. We moved here in 1952. There had only been one family that had lived in this house and they lived here for less than six months.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And you attended Woodland School?
MR. WALLACE: With half the fourth grade, fifth, and sixth grade.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And who were your teachers at Woodland?
MR. WALLACE: Don't remember my fifth grade teacher but Mr. Combs was my sixth grade teacher. He was the first man teacher that I ever had. He was a great, big, tall, lanky fellow and just the finest teacher I think I ever ran into.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember who the principal was at...?
MR. WALLACE: Oh, yes. Mr. Maxwell. In fact, Mr. Maxwell had a duel role in my life. He also went to church with me.
MR. HUNNICUTT: He was quite a huge man, wasn't he?
MR. WALLACE: Looked like he was twenty feet tall. He was a great big, long, lanky fellow and he was just as nice as he could be.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you were attending Woodland, were you ever a part of the safety patrol?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, I was for one year and that was during my sixth grade. I got to be safety patrol for about six months and it was in the springtime.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Explain to me what the safety patrol was all about.
MR. WALLACE: Back at that time, the safety patrol could stop traffic and escort students across streets. I was stationed at the corner of Manhattan and down at the little store that was down there to help kids cross the street going up -- what is that, Northwestern. Across there at Northwestern and Manhattan. I'd help kids cross going down Manhattan to the far end back towards the stores that are down this way now. That's where I was stationed.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How'd you become the safety patrol?
MR. WALLACE: I'm not really sure. Probably because no one else would do it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Volunteer?
MR. WALLACE: I was one of those volunteers. Not only did I always volunteer myself but I'd always volunteer my mother to make cookies or cupcakes when there was something that needed to be done. Everybody wanted me to volunteer her because they liked her cooking.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did the other children know that you were the safety patrol?
MR. WALLACE: We wore a white belt, similar to a Sam Brown belt. It goes back and a lot of people don't know what a Sam Brown is. It's the one that goes around your waist and comes back across your shoulder. We had a badge and we didn't have the reflective clothing that they have now but we did have a sign that said, "Stop." We could hold that up and stop the traffic.
MR. HUNNICUTT: During the school session, were you also responsible for anything in the school? Maybe raising and lowering the flag, or keeping kids in line, or things of that nature?
MR. WALLACE: I never did them. My assignment was just on that corner down there was all that I remember.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How early did you get out of school to go to the corner?
MR. WALLACE: About 15 minutes ahead of everybody else. By the time I got there, they were on the way out anyways.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What were some of the classes that you took at Woodland School?
MR. WALLACE: I remember we had Art. Over there in that cabinet there's a little building that's similar to the Parthenon that I built out of soapstone when I was in the fifth, or the sixth, grade. We had Art, we had Music, we had Physical Education. I know that those were the particular ones outside the regular classroom that we went to.
MR. HUNNICUTT: We talked about communication between the room in the principal's office and the main office. You mentioned that Woodland was a new school. Did it have that capability?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah there was a little box over the door. Looked like a speaker but it was a two-way system. Occasionally we’d come across that. Every morning they made announcements through that and it seems like, to me, that somebody would lead the pledge of allegiance over that when we started the class first thing in the morning.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they ring a bell before and after school as well?
MR. WALLACE: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you continue to have civil defense drills?
MR. WALLACE: I really don't remember them at Woodland. I specifically remember them at Pine Valley and that's because all one wall of that classroom was glass. Not all of the walls in the Woodland school were all glass. There was a row of windows but it wasn't all glass.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you recall the Woodland School had looked compared to Pine Valley School?
MR. WALLACE: It just had a newer look to it. It was on a concrete floor, instead of a raised wood floor, which had linoleum all over it. The Pine Valley School was wood and the Woodland was a concrete block building and everything was painted a light green. It was restful and cheery. It seemed like, to me, that it wasn't as far to one end in Woodland, from one end to the other, as it was at the Pine Valley School.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a cafeteria at Woodland?
MR. WALLACE: Yes we did. Food was good.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And you walked to school?
MR. WALLACE: Yes. Most of the time. Occasionally, I would ride my bicycle but not often, because of the hills that we were in.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what kind of activities, plays, or outdoor activities that the school had?
MR. WALLACE: We normally had recess in the afternoons on pretty days. Go outside and just goof around play kickball and do a few other things. We had plays. I specifically remember that we always had a Christmas Pageant of some kind. I remember in the fifth grade we did -- I don't remember whether it was a Veteran's Day event, or something. But anyway, I played a soldier and they sang the song, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home." I had to borrow a BB gun so I could be Johnny comes marching home with a gun.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about a BB gun. What is a BB gun?
MR. WALLACE: A BB gun. That was the big thing to get young boys in trouble. Back in those days, not everybody could afford a BB gun. They were used for shooting at birds and shooting at squirrels. We used them mostly, around here, for tin cans. We did a lot of target practice stuff around here because we had this creek down below the house. It was a good place to set up targets and shoot.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What else did you do after school?
MR. WALLACE: After school we played in the creek, one of the things that we liked to do in this neighborhood. In these two houses and the two houses across the street were four boys about the same age. Felix Smith lived next door and he and I were in the same grade. Ronny Pittswas a year ahead of us and Danny Foster was one year behind us. We were always getting into whatever it was to get into together. We would go down here and we would dam up this creek. Make it about knee deep or so. The city engineers would come by and just chew us out for damming it up, tear it down and before they'd get out of sihgt we'd start rebuilding it. We played in this creek. There have been many an Indian and cowboy shot on this creek, down through here, over the years. A lot of cops and robbers played up through there. We used to have trails all through here. These houses on the lower street over here were not there. All of this was wooded area. We had trails all thorough this thing.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever go looking for tadpoles in those days?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah, we used to kid folks that we did our frog hunting and our crawfish hunting at night because they glowed in the dark when we were in Oak Ridge. They didn't, but there were tadpoles, there were frogs, there were these crawfish that were down here. It was a lot of fun to get something and catch them. That was just a good place to play.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about a newspaper boy? Where you ever a paperboy?
MR. WALLACE: Oh yes, I was an Oak Ridger boy. I had a paper route for three years, which included all of Quincy, South Purdue over to Manhattan, and all of Manhattan down next to where the fire hall used to be. And at Potomac Circle and Payne Lane. I had a hundred houses, a hundred dwellings. A lot of them were duplexes. Kept a 100% route for the three years. The first Christmas that I had my paper route, I started out the door with my paper bag over my shoulder and Dad said, "What are you taking that for?" I said, "I'll show you when I come back." When I came back I had cookies and candies and cakes and socks and gloves and hats and money. I had over $300 in tips, plus all the gifts that people had given. The next year it was over $400 and by the third year it was over $500 in tips, plus all of the stuff that was there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you have to keep up with all your customers? Did you have a book that you wrote all the names down?
MR. WALLACE: No, we had a punch card. We had a big ring that had a punch card for every customer. It had the year's dates all the way around it and as they paid you punched off that particular date. It was easy to keep up with and it was easy for the people. Some people kept a second one at home and I punched their card too if they wanted to double-check what was going on.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How much was the newspaper?
MR. WALLACE: It was $0.25 a week when I first started.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How many days of the week did you deliver?
MR. WALLACE: It was five days a week.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a particular place you had to put the newspaper?
MR. WALLACE: In most of them, yes. There were some elderly folks that always wanted them behind the door, which I never had a problem with. We didn't have the fences in between the houses then that we've got now. On rainy days everybody got their paper behind the door. On windy days everybody got their paper behind the door. If they had a dog they got their paper behind the door. Or if they were elderly, they got their paper behind the door.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you fold the newspaper and throw the newspapers to the porch?
MR. WALLACE: I rolled them. I rolled them and tucked. Oak Ridger has never been a very large paper so it's easy to do that. Sometimes there wasn't enough of it, hardly, for you to throw it. Just too light.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you collected money for the newspaper on what day of the week did you do that?
MR. WALLACE: Thursdays, because I had to pay my paper bill on Friday.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where would you get your newspapers?
MR. WALLACE: First I started out picking them up here, down by the corner of Quincy and South Purdue and then convinced the distribution manager to drop them off here in front of my house. I would start with the house next door on this side and go down to that end of Quincy. Go down this way. And end up at this house on the other side, over here. My dad always got the first paper.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, you've got this money that you've collected for the newspaper. What did you do with it?
MR. WALLACE: Saved some of it and spent some of it. One of the great, wonderful things about that time was that on Saturdays you could go to the movies and for $0.25 you could get in to see the movie, get a Coke and either popcorn and some kind of candy for $0.25.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you attend these movies?
MR. WALLACE: Up in Jackson Square and Grove Center. There were two theaters in Jackson Square, one was the Center and the other was the Ridge. The Playhouse is now located in the one that was called the Center. Right in front of Big Ed's, before you get to Big Ed's is where the old Ridge Theater was. Then the Grove Theater. Before that, you would often times get to see about five or six cartoons or more, a couple of serials which was a short that was continued from this week to the next week. Get you coming back. Usually, two westerns.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of movies did you see?
MR. WALLACE: Mostly, they were westerns but I do remember one of the serials was the Rocket Man, which was one of the most favorites that I think anybody ever had around here.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that Commando Cody?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What else do you remember in Jackson Square Shopping Center?
MR. WALLACE: I remember that the only department store we had was Miller Brothers, later it became Loveman's. It was the only two-story business that, I think, we had in Oak Ridge at that time except the Rathskeller, which was a restaurant.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you're talking about two- stories does that mean it had a basement and a main floor?
MR. WALLACE: It had a main floor and the basement. You went in on the main floor. Besides that there was the A&P. There was a dime store, there was a fabric shop, I think there was a bakery that was there. I know later on, when they first built Downtown, there was a big bakery that was there. And then there was the bank that was up in the other section. There were a few other small shops up there. I always remember Samuel's was up there, the men's shop. That was always a good store.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you visit Jackson Square very often, other than going to the movie theater?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah, that was Downtown Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That was the main shopping...?
MR. WALLACE: That was it. It was the only place you could go. Now, you could get stuff at these smaller areas but the selection was not as good as what you could get up town. Most of the time, we rode buses.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, let me back up a minute and talk about over in Woodland. Over in the Woodland Shopping Center, what was in that shopping center?
MR. WALLACE: Ok, there was a grocery store that was there. The Mynots ran it at Pine Valley for a long time. There was a grocery store and there was a barbershop and there was a beauty shop. There was a pharmacy and service station.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember who ran the grocery store?
MR. WALLACE: No, I don't remember that one.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you visit the grocery store or the pharmacy, or the drug store that is, when you got out of school.
MR. WALLACE: Oh yeah, most of them had a soda fountain and, I think, one of the grandest things in Oak Ridge was that $0.05 root beer in a frosted glass.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you speak of a soda fountain, describe that to me.
MR. WALLACE: Well, we don't have too many of those any more. It was a long counter that had stools that you sat on. They were fixed. You couldn't move except to turn around in them. Behind this soda fountain there was a mirror that went all the way down, usually, and there were milk shake machines. There were ice cream freezers that were there in front and usually they had somebody that, in those days, we called them a “soda jerk”.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You remember how much it cost for the float?
MR. WALLACE: Floats were usually a dime, I think. You could buy root beer for a nickel, and that was in a frosted mug. They kept those in the freezer and they put it out and it frosted up. That was so good. I think ice cream floats were a dime.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your mom shop at that shopping center very much?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah, for stuff that she might run out of but she did her big shopping at the A&P in Jackson Square.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was your dad -- did he take the car to work every day?
MR. WALLACE: Not always because we didn't always have a car. A lot of time he carpooled. The important thing was conserving fuel and conserving rubber. You got in a carpool with people out there that worked in the same section you did so you didn't have to worry about getting dropped off here and then somebody having to come back here and pick you up in the same place. The first car that I remember that we had was about 1950.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall rationing stamps?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, I've got some right here.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about that?
MR. WALLACE: I just remember that in order to be able to get something you have to be able to show your stamp book. Every person had one. Adults had one. Children had one.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where you went to get these books and how you got the stamps?
MR. WALLACE: No, I don't recall that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you approached the grocery, or wherever you were going to buy items with your rations books, you gave them the book and they gave you the merchandise. Is that how it worked?
MR. WALLACE: They got the stamp out of it. You were allowed so much per stamp. That's the way it was rationed at that time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned about riding the bus, tell me about the bus system in Oak Ridge.
MR. WALLACE: We had the finest bus system of any place in the world, I believe. You never had to wait more than five or six minutes for a bus. Buses covered, I guess, 90% of all the roads in Oak Ridge. We rode buses to school when I went to Robertsville and the high school. But the buses would come by here; they came down Queens, turned down Quincy, went down, and then around South Purdue. There was one that came this way and then there was one that came in the other direction. All the buses went to the Jackson Square area. There was a huge bus terminal that was there right across from the hospital and that was where lots of times you rode a bus from your living area to there and caught a bus that went out to the plant.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was there a particular spot on the street that you had to stand to get the bus?
MR. WALLACE: Not always. If you got to know the bus drivers, sometimes you could just go out there and stand, flag him down and he'll stop and pick you up. Generally, it was usually on the corners, was where the bus stops were.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was there a marquee above the window on the bus that indicated where this bus was going so you knew which bus to get on?
MR. WALLACE: They all had a number and they all had a destination. That was where they were headed. If they were headed to Jackson Square they'd have Jackson Square on it. When they got to Jackson Square they're turn it to wherever they were going to next.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How much did it cost to ride the bus then?
MR. WALLACE: I never remember it costing more than a dime.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have bus tokens or transfers?
MR. WALLACE: You could buy bus tokens and when we were in high school we bought bus tickets so that when you went on the bus you gave the bus driver a little -- it looked like a theater stub, was basically what it looked like.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You were riding the bus and you decided you wanted to get off at a certain place. How did you indicate to the bus driver you wanted off?
MR. WALLACE: There was a cord that ran down both sides of the bus. You'd pull that and it would go, "ping." The driver would look up and you kind of wave your hand and tell him that you wanted off at the next corner. That's where he'd stop.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was there an exit door at the rear of the bus?
MR. WALLACE: All of the ones that I remember. Now, there were some of the bigger school buses that did not have a rear door but they looked like they were on big old truck chassis.
MR. HUNNICUTT: But you were required to enter through the front door?
MR. WALLACE: Yep. On in the front. Off in the back.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, during the summertime when school was out did you attend the playground?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah, but most of the time I remember working around the house and staying here. We were very industrious and I did a lot of things. I started working with my paper route when I was about 12 years old. Apart from that, there wasn't an awful lot to do. We played here. Across the street over here, behind these houses, there was a big open field and that's where we would play basketball in the fall. We played football in the fall. Sometimes we played football here in front yards and use the sidewalks as the goal lines. Then we played softball back over there and then at night everybody would come over here to our house because we had lights we put up and we could play badminton.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever visit the skating rink on the west end of town?
MR. WALLACE: Oh yeah. That was a big highlight to go. We rarely had enough -- had extra money to be able to do that. But I never did go very often but it was a nice place. There's a bank sitting on that property now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about the swimming pool?
MR. WALLACE: Swimming pool. Anytime that I could go swimming I went swimming. That's where I officially learned to swim. I could swim before I went over there but I took my first lessons there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Describe the swimming pool in those days.
MR. WALLACE: It was huge. At the time that it was built, I think that it was the second largest municipal pool in the United States. It was spring fed and that spring was cold like ice. That was the one thing you always remembered about going to Oak Ridge pool. I always remember that it was a big deal for the little kids to swim out to the raft that was out in the middle.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember any entertainment at the swimming pool? Some guys doing acrobatics off the high dive?
MR. WALLACE: I can remember some dare devil kids that would do a few things, but I don't remember anything that was organized. There were some guys always showing off in front of the girls. That's all I remember.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they offer food and drink at the swimming pool?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah, there was a concession stand there too and I remember one of the best things they ever served was a Dreamsicle.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What is a Dreamsicle?
MR. WALLACE: It's an ice cream popsicle, orange and vanilla.
MR. HUNNICUTT: On a stick?
MR. WALLACE: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Speaking of ice cream, did the ice cream man come around the neighborhood?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah, and I used to drive an ice cream truck for one summer.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Who did you drive for?
MR. WALLACE: Jack Armstrong. He owned all of the trucks and, usually, it was football boys that got to drive the trucks. They had one summer that he had enough guys quit on him -- or doing something else-- that they had an empty truck. My friend was the equipment manager of the football team and he called me up and says; "We've got an empty truck if you want to drive it and make some money." Well, they gave me the Scarboro section in town, which had not been very productive. It was kind of interesting because for three years prior to that I had taught Vacation Bible School. We'd put a tent up over there and we'd have Vacation Bible School with all the children over there. One thing you had to understand about the black children and the white children is that the white children usually had a dime in their pocket. Black children never did. So, the white boys driving the trucks over there would go through ringing their bell and keep it running and the black children would run out to the curb to see what it was and then run back in to go get their money from their aunt or uncle or mom or grandma or somebody. Then they'd run back out and the truck would be gone. I discovered that if you go and ring the bell and sit at the corner it wouldn't be long before you had more business than you could stand. The second day I doubled my ice cream order and the guy said, "You've got to be kidding?" I said, "No." He said, "Nobody's ever sold that much off this truck." And I said, "Well, I did." He looked at my icebox and said, "Well, you did. It's all gone." Third day I doubled my order again and the fourth day I finally found out where my distribution level really was. Everybody couldn't believe I was making that kind of money off of that section.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the ice cream truck have a freezer in it? How was it built?
MR. WALLACE: It had a big old freezer on the back that just about filled the whole bed of the truck. It had a corrugated roof that was over it to, kind of, keep the rain and stuff from falling on top of that. Every night you plugged it in. In the morning when you went to pick up your ice cream they'd put some dry ice in it to hold it during the day. I don't remember there being a door on the truck. The trucks actually used more oil than they did gas.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were they a particular color?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah, they were red, old, beat-up, Ford trucks. They had to be early '40's or something.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how much money you made selling ice cream?
MR. WALLACE: I do. One week I made $125. Most money I ever made in a week in my teenage life.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That probably exceeded some people's salary out at the plant.
MR. WALLACE: Yeah it did. It was amazing because I had -- it was kind of funny because I had-- part of my route was out in the Scarboro section and part of it was off of Michigan Avenue. I had a lady over there. Every single day she'd come out. Every day she bought one cup of vanilla ice cream. I didn't have any other sales for that so I kept some for her because she'd come out. I guess I was the only person she saw all day long. She had asked, "Oh what do you got today?" And I'd have to say Popsicles, Fudgesicles, Dreamsicles, Brown Cows, Nutty Buttys, Push-Ups, Cho Chos, ice cream sandwiches, pints and quarts.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did she understand all of that?
MR. WALLACE: "Yeah, I'll have a cup of vanilla."
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you issue a spoon of any sort when you sold a cup of ice cream?
MR. WALLACE: Sure did. There was a standard little wooden spoon that you had a long strip of. That's the way they came, in a strip. You tore one off and it was sanitary and you'd give that with the cup of ice cream.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And the cup was made out of paper?
MR. WALLACE: Yep.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How was the lid attached?
MR. WALLACE: It was pressed in and it had a little lip on the thing that you just got a hold of and pulled the lid off.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall any other home people; salesman or milk delivery or anything like that that occurred during your childhood?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah, two things. One was the rolling store, which was always a joy to be able to go. Just the smell. It just had a wonderful aroma to the thing. That was probably rotten vegetables. Usually you had bread on it and, I think, it carried a little bit of milk. There were fresh vegetables. That was where you got fresh vegetables was off the rolling store. He'd come and park. I don't remember whether he had a bell or whether he had a horn. Everybody in the neighborhood knew where he was and so he'd park for a little while and everyone would go.
MR. HUNNICUTT: We were talking about the rolling stores a bit so describe what a rolling store is.
MR. WALLACE: It was an old school bus that had all the seats taken out of it. There were racks built down both sides of it to put different kinds of merchandise on it. You could get gum, fresh vegetables, and bread and there were several different items. I don't remember everything but it was pretty complete for something that you might just happen to be out of.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about Coke bottles? Did you ever get into Coke bottles and trade them in?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah. I guess people haven't changed much. They used to throw Coke bottles out like they throw out tin cans now. For the most part Coke bottles, in the beginning, you got a $0.02 deposit and then they finally went up to a nickel ($0.05). They were really worth something then. Sometimes we'd collect enough of them to go down any buy another Coke and take them down to the service station, or someplace, and trade them in. They were just like currency for us.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a personal ID badge when you were growing up in the early days?
MR. WALLACE: I'm told that I did, but I don't remember it. At one time, I know that my mother had a picture ID badge. Here is something. This was a residence identification pass the year that it was used. That was for my mother. And then this one, here, was issued to my grandmother but she never used it. She said she was coming to Oak Ridge. That was one of the good things about it. If you didn't want your mother-in-law to come you'd say, "I can't get you clearance."
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall anyone else visiting you when the gates were still up?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, my grandparents came quite often and my aunt. My aunt, eventually, moved here to Oak Ridge and Dad bought a house down the street for her to live in for a while before she died.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about them coming when you were gated?
MR. WALLACE: Most of the time we'd meet them at the gate. Sometimes we'd have their pass in hand. I remember Dad meeting them at the gates and handing them a pass so that they could get through. Their car was searched, of course, but most of the time when they came it was birthday time or Thanksgiving time or holiday time of some kind. More often than not they came to visit us at Christmas time when we lived here in Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what process your dad had to go through to get a pass?
MR. WALLACE: No, I wasn't familiar with that. I was too young to know an awful lot about what was going on. I have a number of pictures of them visiting with us on Pallas Road and then over here later on too.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they stay very many days?
MR. WALLACE: Usually 2-3 at the most. Sometimes it was just for a weekend, like on Thanksgiving holiday. They'd come, maybe, on Wednesday. Sometimes they didn't come until Thursday and then they'd stay till Sunday and go home to Chattanooga.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your family do any outings that took you out through the gates?
MR. WALLACE: Yes. Big Ridge State Park was a beautiful place to go. We'd go to Norris and visit over there. In the early '50's my grandfather, my dad, and my aunt bought a piece of property down at Sale Creek, Tennessee. Many of our weekends were taken up going down there and working on that place from about 1952 on.
MR. HUNNICUTT: About how old were you then?
MR. WALLACE: In '52, I was ten.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about going through and coming back through the gates?
MR. WALLACE: It was always very interesting to see these guys with -- I never saw anybody with a long gun-- but all of them had side arms. They were always well dressed. Nifty looking uniforms. Helmets on. Oftentimes one would stay at the door where the driver was while the other guard would either look in the truck or look under the hood or kind of glance around in the rest of the car.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I've heard stories about illegal alcohol being brought into the cities. Do you know anything about that?
MR. WALLACE: I guess, as an ex-preacher, I'm probably supposed to say “no” but I did. It was kind of funny because one of the noted things at Oak Ridge was that alcohol was illegal to have on a federal reservation but all you had to do to get it was to call the cab company. They delivered. Of course, they always brought it in a brown bag. One of the things that we liked to do as kids is one of those mischievous things. We'd call a cab company and have a pint delivered to somebody you knew did not drink and watch the conversation that went on between the cab driver and the resident.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your family have a phone during the early days of Oak Ridge?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, in fact we still have the same last four numbers. We have had it since 1946, the last four numbers. Our first telephone that we had, we had on Pallas Road, and the number was 5743. Later on they changed it to two letters and a number and then finally when we got area codes they centralized everything and that's what we've got now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you on a party line?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, I think everybody except the high mucky mucks at the plant were all on party lines.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me what a party line is like.
MR. WALLACE: It's sort of just like sitting in a theater and listening to everybody else talk. In fact, most of the time when you picked up the telephone -- everybody had a different ring. If you and I were on the party line you might have two short rings and I might have two long rings. Then if it was more than a two party line, sometimes a four party or a six party line. I don't remember any 10 party lines here. I lived on a 10 party line when I was in North Carolina one time and that was a hoot because once you connected and you were listening on the phone you could hear other people pick up. They were listening to find out what was going on.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Other than selling papers and ice cream and Coke bottles did you do anything else for money?
MR. WALLACE: Yep, I worked for Price Florist at one time. I worked for them delivering. I made wreaths, made boutonnieres, made corsages and delivered the flowers and things to folks. It was kind of interesting because when I went to work for Mr. Price he said, "Well, do you have any restrictions about what you can do?" I said, "Well, I just want to be through in time on Sunday morning to be able to go to church." He said, "What time?" I said, "Well, Sunday School starts at 10:00, if I'm through at 9:30." So they started delivering an hour earlier so that I could get through in time to go to church. We would drive to people's homes on Mother's Day and special occasions and put flowers behind the screen doors. People didn't know we'd been there till they got up and went to the door to get their paper, usually. But at four o'clock in the morning we were delivering flowers in Oak Ridge. We had a standing agreement with the Police Department, at that time. We would stop at stop signs and we would slow down at red lights. Nobody else on the road at that time anyway, but they knew we had a job that had to get done.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where is Price Florist located?
MR. WALLACE: It's located on the Turnpike. It's located right next to Martin Funeral Home.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about lightning bugs. As a kid, did you ever collect lightning bugs?
MR. WALLACE: We sure did. We always had a quart jar of lightning bugs in the refrigerator. The reason we did that was because they went dormant when they were cold and they kept a whole lot longer. It took an awful lot of lightning bugs to make enough to where they could weigh something. They paid us per bug and they figured there's so many and whatever it weighed. We would take them down here to this little house, that's still down there, where NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] is located right now. And that's where we took them. They did research on them to find out why they glowed in the dark.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you catch them?
MR. WALLACE: By hand. They were everywhere. They still are everywhere out here. They're not as many now as there used to be.
MR. HUNNICUTT: After Woodland School you attended Robertsville Junior High?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, we were there the first year that Robertsville opened. I was there my 7th and 8th grade. I was in the marching band. I've got a picture in my album that shows us marching in blue jeans and white shirts because we didn't have any uniforms. A little bit later on we got brand new uniforms. I was the luckiest marching band member, I guess, that ever existed. I went to Robertsville and we got brand new uniforms. Went to Oak Ridge High School we got brand new uniforms. When I ended up in UT I got brand new uniforms. Got custom fitted every time I got in the marching band.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Who was the band director at Robertsville?
MR. WALLACE: Let's see. I don't remember who it was but I don't think it was Steve Combs. Later on he became the band director of the high school the year after I graduated.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you notice -- the difference about going to Robertsville than Woodland?
MR. WALLACE: We changed classes. That was one of the big differences and that was when the schools started integrating. When I was at Robertsville, we had a long announcement that was made over the PA system explaining to us that the black children were going to be coming to school with us and that there were going to be some protestors about it and that we were to stay on the sidewalk and we were not to talk to anybody that we did not know. It was a very solemn circumstance. We did not have one incident. We had no problem with them coming into our school. Most of us were very helpful to them to help them find where they needed to go because they had never had a fine school like Robertsville was. They were very well welcomed.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So everyone got along pretty well?
MR. WALLACE: Yep. Then a little bit later on when I was in high school they bombed the Clinton High School. It was kind of interesting, and very sad. We had an empty school building here in Oak Ridge and we leased it to them for a dollar a year. The day that they came over here to start school the high school band went over and we played. I got my picture in LIFE magazine, the centerfold. Right in the centerfold of it there I am playing my cornet.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the song you played?
MR. WALLACE: No, I have no idea. I just remember it was kind of a sad but a happy occasion too.
MR. HUNNICUTT: After you left Robertsville Junior High you went to the high school that was located where?
MR. WALLACE: I went to the new high school. It had been open a couple of years, not much longer than that. That was in 1957. It was humongous, as far as we were concerned. That was the last year they had four years of high school there; the 9-12 grade. We went four years to Oak Ridge High School. Didn't fail a grade.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What were some of the courses you took in high school?
MR. WALLACE: Science, and Math. I took Typing. I took Home Economics too because those two classes had mostly girls in them.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you do in Home Economics?
MR. WALLACE: I became the teacher's pet because that teacher, Mrs. Stella Woody, was the same lady that I had in the fourth grade and in the fifth grade. She called me "Little Professor." I could already do everything they were trying to teach those girls to do. I could already open a can. I could cook an egg. I could sew an apron. I could do anything that they wanted me to do. I made an A in that class.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you the only boy in the class?
MR. WALLACE: It seemed like, to me, there were a couple of football players in there because they felt like that was an easy course to get through.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you active in any sports in the high school?
MR. WALLACE: No, not in the high school. I was in the marching band and that took most of my time. We practiced, almost, every day and then we had lots of trips that we took to away games and all and contests. We had a Cracker Jack band back in those days.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you travel back and forth?
MR. WALLACE: We went on Trailways buses. Interesting, in the four years of high school, we had the same bus drivers for every away game and trips. Those guys loved to go with the Oak Ridge High School band and we got to know them. They had a good time, we had a good time. It was just comforting to meet the same guys on it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall who the band director was?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, it was Gilbert Scarbrough. He retired from band directing the year that I graduated from high school, 1960.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was some of the other classes you took in high school?
MR. WALLACE: Let's see. I took two years of Latin to the chagrin of the Latin teacher that I had back then. I took-- I think there was a History class. There were four years of Science and four years of Mathematics and four years of English. I know I took Chemistry and Physics my senior year and I never encourage anybody to do that again. That was... I didn't even have a lunch period my senior year. Between classes I would eat lunch with the Chemistry teacher.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you required to take Physical Education in high school?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, we were. Sometimes it was very grueling and the wintertime when we couldn't get outside we did calisthenics for six weeks. I lost 30 pounds one six weeks during the calisthenics out there. Really slimmed down.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Who were some of the high school gym teachers?
MR. WALLACE: Don Bordinger was one of them. The basketball coach was -- was it. Was Ira Green one of them up there? Ms. Swayzee was one of the female teachers over there. The basketball coach -- that was such a grand fellow, Ben Martin. And of course, Jack Armstrong.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you feel that your education in the Oak Ridge school system was above the average education you would have gotten if you hadn't attended Oak Ridge school system?
MR. WALLACE: Absolutely, and I feel like it's still the same today. I'm glad I've got two grandchildren going through the system right now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: After you graduated from high school, what do you do as far as your educational career?
MR. WALLACE: I started out at David Lipscomb College in Nashville, Tennessee. I went from here on a music scholarship and a small academic scholarship. Went there with the idea of studying chemical engineering. Changed after one year, came back to University of Tennessee and went into business administration. In the meantime, J.C. Penney was trying to get me to go work with them full-time. I had worked with them for two or three years on a part-time basis and then I got invited not to come back to UT. I tell everybody I made the Dean's List twice. I made one Dean's List that's not published and then when I graduated I made the other Dean List, the one that is published. That year I was madly in love. It was a good year. I was in the marching band at UT. I had a good time there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let me back up a minute and ask you, do you remember when they dropped the bomb on Japan in 1945? Where were you when you heard that news?
MR. WALLACE: When that happened mother and I were living in Chattanooga because Dad was in the Navy at that time, stationed at the Great Lakes Training Center. I really don't remember anything about that. The first international event that I do remember was when we were living in this house and Stalin died.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the gate opening of the city?
MR. WALLACE: Oh, yes I remember that big, wonderful parade. We stood down here, just about where the Red Cross building is, and watched it on the Turnpike across from the -- I've got some 8mm movies of that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you attend any of the other functions other than the parade during that festivity?
MR. WALLACE: No, we just didn't particularly care for the crowds. But it was a big fun time and it was interesting to have the gates finally open.
MR. HUNNICUTT: In your estimation, how big were the crowds?
MR. WALLACE: I have no idea of estimating how many there were but they were lined all up and down the Turnpike. They were lined all up and down Tennessee Avenue through Jackson Square. The pictures that I’ve seen -- we didn't go all the way up there -- we saw them down on the Turnpike, but the pictures I've seen looked like there was hundreds and hundreds of people.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall some of the people that were in the parade, celebrity wise?
MR. WALLACE: Marie McDonald. Sweetheart of America, I think. I remember the guys on the horses. I don't remember who...
MR. HUNNICUTT: Rod Cameron?
MR. WALLACE: Rod Cameron was probably one of those but I think it was a sheriff's posse of some kind that was on the horses. I just always remember the bands that were playing and the thumping of the drums. That's probably what got me more interested in marching bands than anything.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Then after you graduated, where did you meet your wife to be?
MR. WALLACE: We met the year that I was at David Lipscomb College in Nashville, Tennessee. I had been active in the high school drama scene here at Oak Ridge High School and they had a forensic tournament at the school in Nashville. I signed up to help and ended up directing the freshman play and she had served two years as secretary in the law office. So she could type very well and we needed copies of scripts made and so she typed them up. That's really how we met, because of this play that I directed in my first year of college.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let me mention some things about places of interest and you tell me what you remember. The Snow White Drive-In.
MR. WALLACE: Oh, Snow White Drive -In; onion burgers. There were more onions on those than there was meat but they were so good. One of the places that I worked was the old hospital up there one summer, and then the new hospital one summer. I worked in the autopsy lab as an orderly. You know, you do this because I don't want to do it. That was my job. And keep a pot of coffee going. The first day that I was to do my first autopsy -- didn't know about it -- I had gone down to the Snow White and I had six of those burgers. They were so good. When I came back in Dr. Steffe who was the pathologist says, "Go get some scrubs on." I handled it very well. He surprised me.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what the Snow White looked like from inside?
MR. WALLACE: Very much like a Krystal. It was all greasy, I guess was the word for it. I don't remember a whole lot because most of the time I drove up and had them delivery it out to the car.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Could you drive around the Snow White?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah, they had the carry out trays and all of that. They had carhops.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So they brought the food out. The carhop brought the food out on a tray?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they attach the tray to the car in some way?
MR. WALLACE: You rolled you window up about halfway and there was a lip that hung over and that was good. When you got through you tooted your horn and they came and got it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about the dental offices in Oak Ridge? Do you remember using any of the dentist's?
MR. WALLACE: Yep. We used Dr. John Burgess who was one of the original dentists that came here. The old medical building was right there, next to the Snow White. The Physician's Plaza, is what it's called now, is in the same location of where that was. It was just, like an old Army barracks. It had those linoleum floors everywhere and you could hear "clunk, clunk, clunk " coming down the stairs. I still use Dr. John's son. Back then we called him Johnny and I still call him Johnny because I'm older than he is.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you think that the dental service and the hospital service was above the average during the early days, and even today?
MR. WALLACE: I think it was very adequate. I don't know that it would be on par today because there's so much more equipment that's available and so many more good medications. The first summer that I worked at the hospital in the laboratory, part of my responsibilities were carrying some of the isotopes that came in and down to the ORAU Hospital that used to be there. That's been torn down now. That was the concrete block portion of the hospital. That was like going into a horror picture. They were just learning how to treat cancer. Everything was experimental. People were burned so badly with stuff. They were going to die anyway and there wasn't any cure. They were trying to do what they could to prolong their life with these isotopes and radiation treatments. It was a real sad place to be, to visit those folks. But our cancer treatments today are due to what they learned back then. Even as terrible as it seemed at the time, today's treatments of cancer are just marvelous.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, the development of the atomic bomb is a spin-off of the treatment that we have today for cancer and other things?
MR. WALLACE: Our treatment today is a spin off from the development of the atomic bomb. It's just backwards from that. Because radio isotopes that were discovered. A lot of it was theoretical to start with and eventually, as time went on, they found them. They figured they might be there but they didn't know what they could do with them. Then they found out, through different exposures, that they could treat different things with these radioisotopes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about bowling alleys, did you ever visit the bowling alleys?
MR. WALLACE: Oh, yeah that was one of the most fun places to be in Oak Ridge. Ceilings were down low and most of them were in basements. The one I remember most was the one over here in Jackson Square that's behind the health food store that's there. The steps go up to the second level and there's, kind of, a little alley way that goes down and the bowling alley was in the corner of that. It would always seem so dark and so foreboding to go in there. The noise was horrendous because there wasn't any place for it to go. It was a lot of fun.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember doctor's making house calls?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah, when my sister got sick I remember Dr. Preston coming to the house.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about clubs and things of that nature. Did you belong to any clubs when you were in high school?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, I was in the Maskers, which was the play group. My grandson's in that now. He just finished up being in his first play. That was a lot of fun. Dr. McLaughlin down at the Parkway Cardiologist -- he and I were in a play together. It was his senior year and my freshman year, I think, or sophomore -- something like that. Anyway, we were in a play called "Harvey."
MR. HUNNICUTT: Moving back to when you met your future wife, when did you get married?
MR. WALLACE: We got married in Old Hickory, Tennessee. That's where she was raised. The fellow that was the minister there was also a math teacher at Lipscomb College. I never did have him and I don't know if she ever had him in class or not but he was a busy fellow the night that we got married. He had three weddings that evening. He'd pronounce one and then jump in his car and run to the next to pronounce them and go to the third, I guess.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When did you and your wife come to Oak Ridge?
MR. WALLACE: I tell everybody I moved to Oak Ridge three times. We moved here in 1944, moved away early '45, moved back January of '46, and then I left in 1960 to go off to college and then go to work and then go back to school to finish up and get a degree in Bible and Speech. We moved back to Oak Ridge in 2004.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you first live?
MR. WALLACE: In Oak Ridge?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes.
MR. WALLACE: First place I lived in Oak Ridge was the flat top...
MR. HUNNICUTT: No, I mean when you got married.
MR. WALLACE: When we got married; Hickory, North Carolina. I was working for the J.C. Penney Company.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Then how did you get to Oak Ridge?
MR. WALLACE: After three years working at Penney's in North Carolina, I left them to go back to school and finish and get my degree in Bible and Speech. Then I preached for 42 years in a full-time capacity. Started out in Georgia, moved from Georgia to Kentucky. Was in Barnesville, Georgia to Owingsville, Kentucky. Moved from Owingsville, Kentucky to Decherd, Tennessee in a place called Oak Grove outside of there. Moved from there to Sevierville, Tennessee. Moved from Sevierville to Newport, from Newport to Fayetteville, Tennessee. Then from Fayetteville, Tennessee to Somerset, Kentucky. That's when I retired in 2004.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You came to live in this house in what year?
MR. WALLACE: 2004. Dad was in the Retirement Center. The house had sat empty here for three years, or unused for three years, and was going downhill. About that time my sister's husband took a job in Washington, DC, and that was going to leave nobody here to look after Dad. Since I had just retired, it just befell my lot to come back to Oak Ridge to look after him. So, I approached him with the idea. My sister and I both, together, approached him about the idea of buying his house. He was agreeable to it. He said, "Whatever it was appraised for I'll take that." So we had it appraised and I paid him for the house. Then we spent almost as much money to renovate it as we did to pay for it. So we moved in here in February of 2004.
MR. HUNNICUTT: This particular block Woodland home, what type of heat did it have in it originally?
MR. WALLACE: Originally, like most of them, it had coal heat.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me a little bit about the churches in Oak Ridge in the early days that you remember.
MR. WALLACE: In the beginning there was only one church building in Oak Ridge that was Chapel on the Hill. All the groups used it, just at different times. There were several church groups that met in the schools. The church that we attended is now the New York Avenue Church of Christ. We, at first, attended in Pine Valley and used their gymnasium as an auditorium. Then we moved to Cedar Hill, while this building that they stay in currently was being constructed, and then moved from Cedar Hill to the building that's on New York Avenue. Several of the church groups in town did something very similar. There was a time in which the city said, “We will give you what you think you need.” There are lots that are available in town. At that time, I believe, Oak Ridge had finally become a city. They said we will give any church that wants a piece of property to build a building on we will give that property to them. That's how they ended up on New York Avenue. Others like the Episcopal church and Methodist church that are down here got big lots and they've been there for quite considerable period of time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Bill, is there anything you'd like to talk about that we haven't discussed?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah, I'd like to talk about my paper route just a minute. It was very interesting because we go back and touch on something that you said earlier about the different people from different places that lived here at Oak Ridge. On my paper route, I had to know a little bit of three different languages to deliver papers. I had people from England, which was a different language from American. We had people from India. We had people from Bangladesh. We had people from France. We had people from Germany. We had people from Sweden that were here, many of which could not speak real good English but they could read English and so that's why they wanted the newspaper.
It was always interesting to notice the different customs that they had. One of the fellows that I grew up with in high school, his father was the assistant rabbi for the Jewish synagogue that was here. He and I have continued our friendship over the years. He lives in Alabama now and we communicate once and a while; still together. This was a melting pot. This was an interesting place to live. Wonderful place to grow up. There was, literally, no crime here. Nobody locked their docks, even at night. Screen doors were all that we had.
We didn't know what a storm door was in those days because nobody had air conditioning. You had to open windows and let the breeze blow through. You got to meet very interesting people from all over, from different places. Even on this street here people from many different places in the United States, all with different backgrounds and all with a different story to tell.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your wife's maiden name when you married her?
MR. WALLACE: She was Judy Sam Cox. Her mother and dad -- we have the cabinet there in the kitchen that they had when they first got married.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you have children?
MR. WALLACE: I've got three children. I have a son that teaches at Auburn University in Montgomery, Alabama. I have a daughter that lives here. She works at the Christian bookstore. And I have a daughter that lives at Thompson Station. Her husband's in the banking business. I have 10 grandchildren.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What are your daughter's names?
MR. WALLACE: The one that lives here, her name is Wendy Potter. The daughter that lives in Thompson Station, her name is Amy Lively. And our son is named Sam Wallace.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Bill, what directed you to become a minister?
MR. WALLACE: When I went to North Carolina working for the J.C. Penney Company, I was a hot shot for them. I was supposed to be a trainee. I took over the basement store of the Penney's up there that was about to go under. The basement store carried the rest of the store for three years. Worked with the same number of people, same floor space, and we just increased the sales enough to make the store profitable.
While we were there we found the church very weak. We got married in November and in December they fired the preacher that was there, where we were going to church. For three years, we couldn't get anybody to come for what we could pay. My purpose was to go back to school, go back to the Carolinas to preach. But it never opened to us again in all of those years of fulltime preaching. I saw a need of people that were competent to help.
There were a lot of folks that were just -- and you've probably met some of them too-- they were preaching but they shouldn't be. They just really shouldn't be. I had the capability to stand in front of people and to deliver a lesson and I went back to school to get my degree to hang on the wall. I did that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your wife like Oak Ridge when you first came here?
MR. WALLACE: Oh, yes. Still does. Again, it’s still a very interesting place to live. Even though we don't have a Downtown anymore it's a wonderful place. It's a great neighborhood that's here. It's quiet.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Are either one of you involved in any outside activities?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, she's been involved with the art community over here. She's taken a couple of different classes. She painted this picture that’s on the wall. She is involved with -- we both help with the schools, somewhat, because of our grandchildren. I'm involved with a program with the Highland View Church of Christ. On Thursdays we hand out food to folks that need it. We both teach Bible classes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, you certainly lived a full life, especially here in Oak Ridge and this interview has been a very interesting interview. I know it will be a very interesting interview for someone to read and see how life was in Oak Ridge in those days.
MR. WALLACE: Got one more thing, just thought of. The boardwalks in Oak Ridge. The clumpity, clumpity, clump that people made when they went up and down the streets. The money that was lost between the slats and the rats that lived underneath the boardwalks.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about the mud, since we're talking about boardwalks.
MR. WALLACE: That brings to memory one more thing, too. The first paved street in Oak Ridge was Tennessee Avenue. It was paved from where it starts at New York Avenue all the way past Townsite, which is Jackson Square. They kept everybody off of it for three days and when they let everybody back on it they covered it up with mud. Every road that came to it was either muddy or dusty and gravely and so it just caked the road in mud back through there. But everyone wanted to ride on that road. Sometimes cars would get stuck in the mud and they would just go off and leave the car stuck where it was because you couldn't get it out until it dried up some.
MR. HUNNICUTT: It's certainly been my pleasure to interview you, and I thank you very much or your time.
MR. WALLACE: Well, thank you. I've enjoyed it too.
[End of Interview]
[Editor’s Note: This transcript has been edited at Mr. Wallace’s request. The corresponding audio and video components have remained unchanged.]

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ORAL HISTORY OF WILLIAM S. WALLACE, JR.
Interviewed by Don Hunnicutt
Filmed by BBB Communications, LLC.
November 16, 2012
MR. HUNNICUTT: This interview is for the Center of Oak Ridge Oral History. The date is November 16, 2012. I am Don Hunnicutt in the home of William Wallace, 117 Quincy Avenue, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to take an oral history about living in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Bill, please state your full name, place of birth, and date.
MR. WALLACE: My name is William Spence Wallace, Jr. I was born on January 19, 1942, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Baroness Erlanger Hospital.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Please state your father's name and place of birth and date.
MR. WALLACE: My father's name was William Spence Wallace, Sr. He went by Spence. I'd go by Bill. He was born in Pendleton, South Carolina, in 1920, May 28th.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Your mother's maiden name and place of birth and date.
MR. WALLACE: My mother’s maiden name was Marjorie Allie Beazley and she was born on January 20, 1920, in Nashville, Tennessee.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your father’s school history?
MR. WALLACE: It was kind of varied because he grew up at the time the Great Depression came along. My grandfather had to move a couple of times in order to keep the family going. He actually started school at Sunny Side School at Chattanooga, and from there they moved to Hillsboro, Alabama. Actually, they moved to Pendleton, South Carolina, first and then to Moulton County in Alabama, and stayed with my grandmother’s family there until the Depression was over. Then they moved back to Chattanooga.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your father’s name?
MR. WALLACE: My father’s name was William Spence Wallace and he had a varied working opportunity in his early life, when he first got married. I think one of the things was that he worked at one of the Volunteer Ordnance Works, which was known as the TN T Plant in Chattanooga. There’s a Volkswagen plant on that site now, and I think that’s how he got his job here in Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your mother’s schooling?
MR. WALLACE: She had two years of college. Both of them had two years of college at the University of Chattanooga.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you have sisters and brothers?
MR. WALLACE: I have two sisters. One is deceased. She died, at age 19, of leukemia here in Oak Ridge. And the other sister lives in Washington, DC.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What are their names?
MR. WALLACE: Virginia Lee Wallace is the sister that is the youngest, under me. And then the youngest of all three of us was Molly Susan Wallace.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where were they born?
MR. WALLACE: They were both born here in Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Your father, what kind of work did he do before he came to Oak Ridge?
MR. WALLACE: He worked, first of all, for the A&P Company then he worked for an insurance company. I think it was Life and Casualty. Then he worked out at the TNT Plant.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you know how he got a job at Y-12?
MR. WALLACE: Evidently, through the efforts of them trying to find people that had some chemical experience and since that was part of what he was doing out at Volunteer Ordnance Works at the TNT Plant. Evidently, that was how he got the job up here.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your mother work before during that period of time?
MR. WALLACE: No. I have a work slip where she worked for Sears at one time, but it was before they got married. I don’t think she had but one job from the time she got married until she died.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember where they got married and when?
MR. WALLACE: They got married in Chattanooga, Tennessee, at my mother’s home on Brookfield Avenue, 301. The house is no longer there. It’s been torn down and is a parking lot. It was kind of interesting because her sister was the maid of honor and she wore black.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So how did your family get to Oak Ridge?
MR. WALLACE: Dad came here first, as were most of the people at the time that he came with. He hired in at first, in January 1944, lived in a dormitory for a while until they were able to find some housing for him. As soon as they got a flat top available for us then mother and I joined him, which was in March of that year.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how you came to Oak Ridge, what type of vehicle?
MR. WALLACE: On a bus.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where did the bus let you off?
MR. WALLACE: We came in to Knoxville and then got a local bus from Knoxville here. Dad had already secured the passes that we needed to get through the gates over here.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How old were you at the time?
MR. WALLACE: I was two.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, the first house was a flat top that the family lived in?
MR. WALLACE: We lived at 61-B Outer Drive and there was a loop that was right there off of Outer Drive, underneath the water towers. I have a picture of it right here. That’s the first house that we lived in and there’s the loop we lived on. The house was the third house right here.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about living in the flat top?
MR. WALLACE: It was cozy. It was good and hot in the summertime and cold in the wintertime.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what the flat top was made out of?
MR. WALLACE: Plywood. They used to assemble them down here where the First Baptist Church is right now. They constructed them in sections, put them on flatbed trucks, and hauled them up to the sites where they had already put the foundations up. It was amazing to watch them set those things together.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How long did you live in the flat top?
MR. WALLACE: We lived in the flat top one year. Dad was then drafted into the Navy. They told him when he came to Oak Ridge that he wouldn’t be up for grabs, among other things they told him that wasn’t quite, exactly the truth. Dad was one of them. There were several that were drafted out of Y-12, and other plants too.
So, we lost our housing since he wasn’t working at the plant. We moved out in 1945, went back to Chattanooga. He went into the Navy and stayed nine months. The war was over and so with him having some medical problems, they decided they would let him go home. So after nine months they gave him an honorable medical discharge and he went back to Chattanooga.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about your dad’s job when he first came to Oak Ridge?
MR. WALLACE: Actually, the only thing that I remember was that he worked strange hours. He worked a rotating shift, like most people did here. This place was like an anthill. Everybody worked shift work except a few elites that only worked the day shift. I didn’t know when he was going to be home. I didn’t know when he was going to be sleeping. That went on for a number of years, even after he came back a second time to Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever recall your dad saying anything about his job, what he did?
MR. WALLACE: No. In fact, I don’t think my mother ever knew what my dad did out at one of the plants, and I don’t think she ever has. I knew what was going on because being raised here in Oak Ridge there was a lot of stuff that you just, kind of, knew. When the incident happened out at the plant in 1958, I was able to access the technical library up here when I was doing some research for a school project. I found a book that was on that particular incident that had been declassified. My dad came unglued when I brought it home because he said; “You’re not supposed to have that.” I said, “Well, it’s declassified.” I’ve got a copy of it in my files here.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, security was something that, really, everybody lived in those days.
MR. WALLACE: Absolutely. It was kind of interesting. If it was a shiny, new car and had good tires on it, it belonged to the FBI.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That sounds right.
MR. WALLACE: And if you saw one of those cars down the street that meant either somebody had said something they should not have said or they were up for some kind of promotion.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was the first school you attended in Oak Ridge?
MR. WALLACE: Pine Valley. Started there in kindergarten.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about starting kindergarten?
MR. WALLACE: Found my first girlfriend in kindergarten. We have some 8mm movies of me walking up the walkway hand and hand with that little girl.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, where were you living at that time?
MR. WALLACE: Well, that time was the second time we had come back to Oak Ridge in 1946, early in January of 1946. We were living on Pallas Road.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did your mother feel, do you think, about having to come back after she had to leave and things were not really like they were supposed to be the first time?
MR. WALLACE: It was better because Dad had already had two promotions and he was making a little bit more money than he had to start with and we were going to get a bigger house.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So that made her happy?
MR. WALLACE: Oh, yeah. She was a very happy housewife.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of house was the house on Pallas?
MR. WALLACE: We moved into a B house.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Describe a B house to me.
MR. WALLACE: All housing in Oak Ridge, you got according to the size of your family. This is what the house looked like when we first moved in. In fact, the house was empty when this picture was taken. It was interesting to watch the construction that was going on in Oak Ridge. The fact of it was that they could go in with a bulldozer, scratch out a road, and in 7-10 days there would be people living in houses on that street.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So how many bedrooms were in the B house?
MR. WALLACE: B house had two. Usually A house had one, B house had two, C house had three, D house had four. You had to be pretty far up, or a big family, to get a D house.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How is the house heated?
MR. WALLACE: That house, and the one that I am living in now, were originally heated with coal. There was a great big coal furnace in the utility room.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about the delivery of coal?
MR. WALLACE: Well, it was very noisy. You could hear them coming with those big, old – usually a dump truck kind of a truck – that came by, that brought it. There were several workers, usually they were black, and they had – looked like—bushel, canvas baskets that they carried on their shoulders. They’d go out to the truck and they had a chute on the back of it where they would set the basket down, open the chute, fill it up with coal, bring it to the house, and then dump it in the coal bin.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was the coal bin located?
MR. WALLACE: In that house, it was located right next to the back door and the same on this house here. This used to be the backdoor, here, and the coal bin was right next to that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a fireplace in that house?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, there was. We had a real nice fireplace. We always enjoyed it. Sometimes we’d burn coal in it and sometimes we’d burn wood if we could get some wood.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall, back in those days, your mother washing the walls down in the house from the coal dust?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, it was dirty everywhere; on the porch where we played, our clothes, our faces, everything had coal soot on it because everybody in town used coal.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you do with the ashes out of the coal stove?
MR. WALLACE: They went in the driveway. When you couldn’t get gravel you used the clinkers in the driveway.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about the Pine Valley School. What do you remember about some of your teachers and the classes and the things that happened in school?
MR. WALLACE: I remember the kindergarten teacher and her name was Brown. The first grade teacher was Ms. Mashburn. I don’t remember my second grade teacher but my third grade teacher was Ms. Baird, Ms. Ruth Cates Baird. I had her twice in the school system. I had her in the third grade. She went back to school and got everything in a higher degree and ended up in high school. I had her for senior English in high school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall whether these teachers were young girls or older ladies?
MR. WALLACE: Everybody in Oak Ridge was young. There weren’t any old people here. I think the average age for most people was about 24-26 and most of the families had, either, 2 or 3 children and they were all small and about the same age. Everybody made about the same so there wasn’t too much hoity-toity stuff going on in Oak Ridge except in some of the higher ranks of folks out at the plants.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was there a lot of children in each class?
MR. WALLACE: Oh, yes. Classrooms were full. I think I’ve got one picture here. Here was – this I think was -- either the first or second grade. I‘m not sure what all we were dressed up for but…
MR. HUNNICUTT: This was at Pine Valley?
MR. WALLACE: This was at Pine Valley. My fourth grade teacher that I had there; I had her three times and never failed a grade. I had her in fourth grade and then middle year of fourth grade we moved over to this house and she moved the next year. I had her in the fifth grade and then I had her in high school. She was a Home Economics teacher and I took Home Ec. one year.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Very interesting. That’s an odd situation. Do you remember a recess going to Pine Valley? What did you do going out to recess?
MR. WALLACE: We went out and ran. I mean, it was just, everybody ran. We played tag; we played softball, baseball, or football or whatever it was. There was a big sandbox that was there in the back that we enjoyed being in. There were monkey bars. It was a good playground and we just enjoyed it. It was on the backside. I think they built some more buildings back in that area and that playground is no longer there. I remember that and also, one of the most outstanding things I remember about Pine Valley, were the bomb drills.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Explain about that.
MR. WALLACE: Well, we had two kinds of drills. We had fire drills and we had bomb drills. In fire drills, we exited the building. In bomb drills we got in the hall and hunched down on the floor, curled up almost in a fetal position, and put our hands on the back of our necks. I think that happened until someone finally figured out if they ever dropped an atom bomb on us here there wasn't any place you could hide. I don't remember us having bomb drills after grammar school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what time class started and what time it ended?
MR. WALLACE: I don't remember what time. It seemed to me they didn't start till about 8 or 8:30, later then they do today. We got out, usually, around 3 o'clock.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was there a bell to indicate when class started and when class ended?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, a very loud bell. They were, evidently, all over the building in different places. I don't remember what the actual signal was but there was one sequence that they gave. The long bell was to dismiss class or start class and then there were short bursts of the bell for either fire drill or the bomb drill.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the classrooms have an intercom system so the teachers would contact the office?
MR. WALLACE: I don't think they did at all. I think you sent a student with a note somewhere, is what I remember. I don’t believe they were quite that far along. Now, when we got to Woodland, which was a newer school, they had intercoms in there that they could talk with the office from the classrooms.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a gym back in those days?
MR. WALLACE: Absolutely, we had gym. Sometimes we loved it and sometimes we hated it. But most of the time it was a good thing because it got us out of class.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What kind of activities did you do?
MR. WALLACE: Well, we played dodge ball, we played volleyball, we ran, we did calisthenics, and those were the particular things that I recall. And usually in the wintertime they had one session, in the older classes, of dancing.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about rope climbing? Were there ropes in the gym to climb?
MR. WALLACE: There were ropes to climb and that was one thing I could never do.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So it was an all-around Physical Education for the kids?
MR. WALLACE: It was and we had it on a very regular basis.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about school programs? Did you have plays and things of that nature?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, in fact, in the fourth grade -- I don't remember anything in the first, second, and third grade-- but I do remember in the fourth grade that we put on a Christmas Pageant. I got to be one of the Wiseman that year. But we also had a band in the fourth grade, beginner’s band. Ms. Carter, I don't remember her first name, but her name was Ms. Carter. She was the Music teacher there and she was very good. I took some lessons from her; piano lessons to start with, and then she had me take some trumpet lessons. That's where I got started.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you walk to school, back and forth, everyday?
MR. WALLACE: I did. Occasionally, I’d get to ride my bicycle, but not very often. It was because of the hills between here and there and the schools. Now, in Pine Valley I always walked over there. Never rode the school bus that I can ever remember.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How far away was the home from the school?
MR. WALLACE: I guess it was a quarter of a mile, in a straight shot. Course you could cut through some yards to get to it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about your mother grocery shopping when you lived in that particular house?
MR. WALLACE: Well, there two places to grocery shop. One was the little Pine Valley area. Each section of town had it's own little group of stores, shopping center. Usually there was a grocery store, a drug store, maybe a variety store, a barbershop, a beauty shop, and in some of them there was a fire truck.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did Pine Valley have a fire truck?
MR. WALLACE: No. We were close enough to Downtown, to Jackson Square, that they didn't put a fire truck there. But there was one in Grove Center.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you go shopping with your mom?
MR. WALLACE: Yes. We'd go to that grocery store there but the big grocery store was the A&P up in Jackson Square.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about going to the grocery store?
MR. WALLACE: It was the first store that was air-conditioned, I think, in Oak Ridge and that's why everybody liked to shop there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you find the people standing in lines, those days, for certain items?
MR. WALLACE: Almost everything. And that was common and nobody seemed to rile, grumble, or complain. The longest lines I think I remember was up at the Hamilton Bank up in Jackson Square because it was the only bank in town and everybody wanted to get their paycheck cashed. That line would stretch all the way across that front portico that's there between the two sections of Jackson Square.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did your mother wash her clothes when she lived there?
MR. WALLACE: There were washaterias all over town and you would gather your clothes up. If you were fortunate enough to have a car you went in your car, if you didn't you borrowed a vehicle. Sometimes you'd have to get a cab to go wash your clothes. There were no dryers. Every house had a clothesline. That was standard with every single house.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was there a concrete sink in the utility room for washing clothes?
MR. WALLACE: I guess we'd call them a utility sink that was in there. It was usually double concrete sink that was there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you like school when you went to Pine Valley?
MR. WALLACE: Oh, loved it. Loved school. Didn't like studying but I loved school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How was the neighborhood? Did the different people from all over the United States gathered in Oak Ridge, did they all get along in the neighborhoods?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah. Everybody was here for the same purpose, except for many of the foreigners -- and I call them foreigners because they were from another country sometimes. That actually will come in a little bit later in our interview. After we moved to this house over here because that was an interesting thing I'll tell you about that. I don't remember any foreigners living in the area where we lived on Pallas Road.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your dress like when you went to school? What did you wear?
MR. WALLACE: Today they call them t-shirts. We called them polo shirts back then. Sometimes there were shorts in the hotter times. There was no air-conditioning in any of the schools so we didn't have the slightest idea of what air-conditioning was when everything first started here. Rooms were squalid, particularly in September. School never started until Labor Day.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now in the wintertime you wore a coat to school, obviously. If I remember right, each room had somewhere that you put your personal belongings. Is that right?
MR. WALLACE: Sometimes they were cubby holes and they were coat racks all across the back of the room. Then below those were cubby holes and that's where you put your lunch if you brought your lunch, unless you were going to buy it in the cafeteria.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you went to Pine Valley, did Pine Valley have a cafeteria?
MR. WALLACE: I really don't remember. Mostly, I remember taking my lunch.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about if you needed to go to the bathroom while you were in class? Where did you go to use the restroom?
MR. WALLACE: In Pine Valley, we were very fortunate that between every two classrooms was a common bathroom. And you had to be sure that when you went in there that you closed the other door so that somebody in the other room didn't come in.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, in your young, youth age were you a healthy child or did you have to have doctor's visits?
MR. WALLACE: I don't recall any doctor's visits at home. When I was six, I had to have my tonsils out. I had a tremendous amount of sore throats. Today they’d call it strep throat, I guess. Until then I was kind of a sickly child, but once I got my tonsils out I was very rarely ever sick after that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember that experience in the hospital?
MR. WALLACE: Oh do I. That was when they used ether. The one thing I remember -- two things. One was when they were going to put me out they brought this little wire cage with gauze in it where they were going to drip the ether on. They put that over my mouth and my nose. And I remember grabbing that thing and throwing it because I didn't like the smell of the ether. Well, they finally held me down and got me asleep, took my tonsils out, and then the best part of it was all the Jell-O and ice cream that I had to eat. It was the only thing I could eat for a few days.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How long did you have to stay in the hospital?
MR. WALLACE: I don't think I stayed more than a day or so.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Back to your school at Pine Valley, you attended through the fifth grade? Is that correct?
MR. WALLACE: Halfway through the fourth grade.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Fourth grade, and then you came to Woodland?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, and then we moved over here to Woodland.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you live in Woodland?
MR. WALLACE: In this house here on Quincy. We moved here in 1952. There had only been one family that had lived in this house and they lived here for less than six months.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And you attended Woodland School?
MR. WALLACE: With half the fourth grade, fifth, and sixth grade.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And who were your teachers at Woodland?
MR. WALLACE: Don't remember my fifth grade teacher but Mr. Combs was my sixth grade teacher. He was the first man teacher that I ever had. He was a great, big, tall, lanky fellow and just the finest teacher I think I ever ran into.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember who the principal was at...?
MR. WALLACE: Oh, yes. Mr. Maxwell. In fact, Mr. Maxwell had a duel role in my life. He also went to church with me.
MR. HUNNICUTT: He was quite a huge man, wasn't he?
MR. WALLACE: Looked like he was twenty feet tall. He was a great big, long, lanky fellow and he was just as nice as he could be.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you were attending Woodland, were you ever a part of the safety patrol?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, I was for one year and that was during my sixth grade. I got to be safety patrol for about six months and it was in the springtime.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Explain to me what the safety patrol was all about.
MR. WALLACE: Back at that time, the safety patrol could stop traffic and escort students across streets. I was stationed at the corner of Manhattan and down at the little store that was down there to help kids cross the street going up -- what is that, Northwestern. Across there at Northwestern and Manhattan. I'd help kids cross going down Manhattan to the far end back towards the stores that are down this way now. That's where I was stationed.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How'd you become the safety patrol?
MR. WALLACE: I'm not really sure. Probably because no one else would do it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Volunteer?
MR. WALLACE: I was one of those volunteers. Not only did I always volunteer myself but I'd always volunteer my mother to make cookies or cupcakes when there was something that needed to be done. Everybody wanted me to volunteer her because they liked her cooking.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did the other children know that you were the safety patrol?
MR. WALLACE: We wore a white belt, similar to a Sam Brown belt. It goes back and a lot of people don't know what a Sam Brown is. It's the one that goes around your waist and comes back across your shoulder. We had a badge and we didn't have the reflective clothing that they have now but we did have a sign that said, "Stop." We could hold that up and stop the traffic.
MR. HUNNICUTT: During the school session, were you also responsible for anything in the school? Maybe raising and lowering the flag, or keeping kids in line, or things of that nature?
MR. WALLACE: I never did them. My assignment was just on that corner down there was all that I remember.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How early did you get out of school to go to the corner?
MR. WALLACE: About 15 minutes ahead of everybody else. By the time I got there, they were on the way out anyways.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What were some of the classes that you took at Woodland School?
MR. WALLACE: I remember we had Art. Over there in that cabinet there's a little building that's similar to the Parthenon that I built out of soapstone when I was in the fifth, or the sixth, grade. We had Art, we had Music, we had Physical Education. I know that those were the particular ones outside the regular classroom that we went to.
MR. HUNNICUTT: We talked about communication between the room in the principal's office and the main office. You mentioned that Woodland was a new school. Did it have that capability?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah there was a little box over the door. Looked like a speaker but it was a two-way system. Occasionally we’d come across that. Every morning they made announcements through that and it seems like, to me, that somebody would lead the pledge of allegiance over that when we started the class first thing in the morning.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they ring a bell before and after school as well?
MR. WALLACE: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you continue to have civil defense drills?
MR. WALLACE: I really don't remember them at Woodland. I specifically remember them at Pine Valley and that's because all one wall of that classroom was glass. Not all of the walls in the Woodland school were all glass. There was a row of windows but it wasn't all glass.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you recall the Woodland School had looked compared to Pine Valley School?
MR. WALLACE: It just had a newer look to it. It was on a concrete floor, instead of a raised wood floor, which had linoleum all over it. The Pine Valley School was wood and the Woodland was a concrete block building and everything was painted a light green. It was restful and cheery. It seemed like, to me, that it wasn't as far to one end in Woodland, from one end to the other, as it was at the Pine Valley School.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a cafeteria at Woodland?
MR. WALLACE: Yes we did. Food was good.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And you walked to school?
MR. WALLACE: Yes. Most of the time. Occasionally, I would ride my bicycle but not often, because of the hills that we were in.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what kind of activities, plays, or outdoor activities that the school had?
MR. WALLACE: We normally had recess in the afternoons on pretty days. Go outside and just goof around play kickball and do a few other things. We had plays. I specifically remember that we always had a Christmas Pageant of some kind. I remember in the fifth grade we did -- I don't remember whether it was a Veteran's Day event, or something. But anyway, I played a soldier and they sang the song, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home." I had to borrow a BB gun so I could be Johnny comes marching home with a gun.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about a BB gun. What is a BB gun?
MR. WALLACE: A BB gun. That was the big thing to get young boys in trouble. Back in those days, not everybody could afford a BB gun. They were used for shooting at birds and shooting at squirrels. We used them mostly, around here, for tin cans. We did a lot of target practice stuff around here because we had this creek down below the house. It was a good place to set up targets and shoot.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What else did you do after school?
MR. WALLACE: After school we played in the creek, one of the things that we liked to do in this neighborhood. In these two houses and the two houses across the street were four boys about the same age. Felix Smith lived next door and he and I were in the same grade. Ronny Pittswas a year ahead of us and Danny Foster was one year behind us. We were always getting into whatever it was to get into together. We would go down here and we would dam up this creek. Make it about knee deep or so. The city engineers would come by and just chew us out for damming it up, tear it down and before they'd get out of sihgt we'd start rebuilding it. We played in this creek. There have been many an Indian and cowboy shot on this creek, down through here, over the years. A lot of cops and robbers played up through there. We used to have trails all through here. These houses on the lower street over here were not there. All of this was wooded area. We had trails all thorough this thing.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever go looking for tadpoles in those days?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah, we used to kid folks that we did our frog hunting and our crawfish hunting at night because they glowed in the dark when we were in Oak Ridge. They didn't, but there were tadpoles, there were frogs, there were these crawfish that were down here. It was a lot of fun to get something and catch them. That was just a good place to play.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about a newspaper boy? Where you ever a paperboy?
MR. WALLACE: Oh yes, I was an Oak Ridger boy. I had a paper route for three years, which included all of Quincy, South Purdue over to Manhattan, and all of Manhattan down next to where the fire hall used to be. And at Potomac Circle and Payne Lane. I had a hundred houses, a hundred dwellings. A lot of them were duplexes. Kept a 100% route for the three years. The first Christmas that I had my paper route, I started out the door with my paper bag over my shoulder and Dad said, "What are you taking that for?" I said, "I'll show you when I come back." When I came back I had cookies and candies and cakes and socks and gloves and hats and money. I had over $300 in tips, plus all the gifts that people had given. The next year it was over $400 and by the third year it was over $500 in tips, plus all of the stuff that was there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you have to keep up with all your customers? Did you have a book that you wrote all the names down?
MR. WALLACE: No, we had a punch card. We had a big ring that had a punch card for every customer. It had the year's dates all the way around it and as they paid you punched off that particular date. It was easy to keep up with and it was easy for the people. Some people kept a second one at home and I punched their card too if they wanted to double-check what was going on.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How much was the newspaper?
MR. WALLACE: It was $0.25 a week when I first started.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How many days of the week did you deliver?
MR. WALLACE: It was five days a week.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a particular place you had to put the newspaper?
MR. WALLACE: In most of them, yes. There were some elderly folks that always wanted them behind the door, which I never had a problem with. We didn't have the fences in between the houses then that we've got now. On rainy days everybody got their paper behind the door. On windy days everybody got their paper behind the door. If they had a dog they got their paper behind the door. Or if they were elderly, they got their paper behind the door.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you fold the newspaper and throw the newspapers to the porch?
MR. WALLACE: I rolled them. I rolled them and tucked. Oak Ridger has never been a very large paper so it's easy to do that. Sometimes there wasn't enough of it, hardly, for you to throw it. Just too light.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So you collected money for the newspaper on what day of the week did you do that?
MR. WALLACE: Thursdays, because I had to pay my paper bill on Friday.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where would you get your newspapers?
MR. WALLACE: First I started out picking them up here, down by the corner of Quincy and South Purdue and then convinced the distribution manager to drop them off here in front of my house. I would start with the house next door on this side and go down to that end of Quincy. Go down this way. And end up at this house on the other side, over here. My dad always got the first paper.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, you've got this money that you've collected for the newspaper. What did you do with it?
MR. WALLACE: Saved some of it and spent some of it. One of the great, wonderful things about that time was that on Saturdays you could go to the movies and for $0.25 you could get in to see the movie, get a Coke and either popcorn and some kind of candy for $0.25.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you attend these movies?
MR. WALLACE: Up in Jackson Square and Grove Center. There were two theaters in Jackson Square, one was the Center and the other was the Ridge. The Playhouse is now located in the one that was called the Center. Right in front of Big Ed's, before you get to Big Ed's is where the old Ridge Theater was. Then the Grove Theater. Before that, you would often times get to see about five or six cartoons or more, a couple of serials which was a short that was continued from this week to the next week. Get you coming back. Usually, two westerns.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of movies did you see?
MR. WALLACE: Mostly, they were westerns but I do remember one of the serials was the Rocket Man, which was one of the most favorites that I think anybody ever had around here.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that Commando Cody?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What else do you remember in Jackson Square Shopping Center?
MR. WALLACE: I remember that the only department store we had was Miller Brothers, later it became Loveman's. It was the only two-story business that, I think, we had in Oak Ridge at that time except the Rathskeller, which was a restaurant.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you're talking about two- stories does that mean it had a basement and a main floor?
MR. WALLACE: It had a main floor and the basement. You went in on the main floor. Besides that there was the A&P. There was a dime store, there was a fabric shop, I think there was a bakery that was there. I know later on, when they first built Downtown, there was a big bakery that was there. And then there was the bank that was up in the other section. There were a few other small shops up there. I always remember Samuel's was up there, the men's shop. That was always a good store.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you visit Jackson Square very often, other than going to the movie theater?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah, that was Downtown Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That was the main shopping...?
MR. WALLACE: That was it. It was the only place you could go. Now, you could get stuff at these smaller areas but the selection was not as good as what you could get up town. Most of the time, we rode buses.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, let me back up a minute and talk about over in Woodland. Over in the Woodland Shopping Center, what was in that shopping center?
MR. WALLACE: Ok, there was a grocery store that was there. The Mynots ran it at Pine Valley for a long time. There was a grocery store and there was a barbershop and there was a beauty shop. There was a pharmacy and service station.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember who ran the grocery store?
MR. WALLACE: No, I don't remember that one.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you visit the grocery store or the pharmacy, or the drug store that is, when you got out of school.
MR. WALLACE: Oh yeah, most of them had a soda fountain and, I think, one of the grandest things in Oak Ridge was that $0.05 root beer in a frosted glass.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you speak of a soda fountain, describe that to me.
MR. WALLACE: Well, we don't have too many of those any more. It was a long counter that had stools that you sat on. They were fixed. You couldn't move except to turn around in them. Behind this soda fountain there was a mirror that went all the way down, usually, and there were milk shake machines. There were ice cream freezers that were there in front and usually they had somebody that, in those days, we called them a “soda jerk”.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You remember how much it cost for the float?
MR. WALLACE: Floats were usually a dime, I think. You could buy root beer for a nickel, and that was in a frosted mug. They kept those in the freezer and they put it out and it frosted up. That was so good. I think ice cream floats were a dime.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your mom shop at that shopping center very much?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah, for stuff that she might run out of but she did her big shopping at the A&P in Jackson Square.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was your dad -- did he take the car to work every day?
MR. WALLACE: Not always because we didn't always have a car. A lot of time he carpooled. The important thing was conserving fuel and conserving rubber. You got in a carpool with people out there that worked in the same section you did so you didn't have to worry about getting dropped off here and then somebody having to come back here and pick you up in the same place. The first car that I remember that we had was about 1950.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall rationing stamps?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, I've got some right here.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about that?
MR. WALLACE: I just remember that in order to be able to get something you have to be able to show your stamp book. Every person had one. Adults had one. Children had one.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where you went to get these books and how you got the stamps?
MR. WALLACE: No, I don't recall that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you approached the grocery, or wherever you were going to buy items with your rations books, you gave them the book and they gave you the merchandise. Is that how it worked?
MR. WALLACE: They got the stamp out of it. You were allowed so much per stamp. That's the way it was rationed at that time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned about riding the bus, tell me about the bus system in Oak Ridge.
MR. WALLACE: We had the finest bus system of any place in the world, I believe. You never had to wait more than five or six minutes for a bus. Buses covered, I guess, 90% of all the roads in Oak Ridge. We rode buses to school when I went to Robertsville and the high school. But the buses would come by here; they came down Queens, turned down Quincy, went down, and then around South Purdue. There was one that came this way and then there was one that came in the other direction. All the buses went to the Jackson Square area. There was a huge bus terminal that was there right across from the hospital and that was where lots of times you rode a bus from your living area to there and caught a bus that went out to the plant.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was there a particular spot on the street that you had to stand to get the bus?
MR. WALLACE: Not always. If you got to know the bus drivers, sometimes you could just go out there and stand, flag him down and he'll stop and pick you up. Generally, it was usually on the corners, was where the bus stops were.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was there a marquee above the window on the bus that indicated where this bus was going so you knew which bus to get on?
MR. WALLACE: They all had a number and they all had a destination. That was where they were headed. If they were headed to Jackson Square they'd have Jackson Square on it. When they got to Jackson Square they're turn it to wherever they were going to next.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How much did it cost to ride the bus then?
MR. WALLACE: I never remember it costing more than a dime.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have bus tokens or transfers?
MR. WALLACE: You could buy bus tokens and when we were in high school we bought bus tickets so that when you went on the bus you gave the bus driver a little -- it looked like a theater stub, was basically what it looked like.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You were riding the bus and you decided you wanted to get off at a certain place. How did you indicate to the bus driver you wanted off?
MR. WALLACE: There was a cord that ran down both sides of the bus. You'd pull that and it would go, "ping." The driver would look up and you kind of wave your hand and tell him that you wanted off at the next corner. That's where he'd stop.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was there an exit door at the rear of the bus?
MR. WALLACE: All of the ones that I remember. Now, there were some of the bigger school buses that did not have a rear door but they looked like they were on big old truck chassis.
MR. HUNNICUTT: But you were required to enter through the front door?
MR. WALLACE: Yep. On in the front. Off in the back.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, during the summertime when school was out did you attend the playground?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah, but most of the time I remember working around the house and staying here. We were very industrious and I did a lot of things. I started working with my paper route when I was about 12 years old. Apart from that, there wasn't an awful lot to do. We played here. Across the street over here, behind these houses, there was a big open field and that's where we would play basketball in the fall. We played football in the fall. Sometimes we played football here in front yards and use the sidewalks as the goal lines. Then we played softball back over there and then at night everybody would come over here to our house because we had lights we put up and we could play badminton.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever visit the skating rink on the west end of town?
MR. WALLACE: Oh yeah. That was a big highlight to go. We rarely had enough -- had extra money to be able to do that. But I never did go very often but it was a nice place. There's a bank sitting on that property now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about the swimming pool?
MR. WALLACE: Swimming pool. Anytime that I could go swimming I went swimming. That's where I officially learned to swim. I could swim before I went over there but I took my first lessons there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Describe the swimming pool in those days.
MR. WALLACE: It was huge. At the time that it was built, I think that it was the second largest municipal pool in the United States. It was spring fed and that spring was cold like ice. That was the one thing you always remembered about going to Oak Ridge pool. I always remember that it was a big deal for the little kids to swim out to the raft that was out in the middle.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember any entertainment at the swimming pool? Some guys doing acrobatics off the high dive?
MR. WALLACE: I can remember some dare devil kids that would do a few things, but I don't remember anything that was organized. There were some guys always showing off in front of the girls. That's all I remember.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they offer food and drink at the swimming pool?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah, there was a concession stand there too and I remember one of the best things they ever served was a Dreamsicle.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What is a Dreamsicle?
MR. WALLACE: It's an ice cream popsicle, orange and vanilla.
MR. HUNNICUTT: On a stick?
MR. WALLACE: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Speaking of ice cream, did the ice cream man come around the neighborhood?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah, and I used to drive an ice cream truck for one summer.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Who did you drive for?
MR. WALLACE: Jack Armstrong. He owned all of the trucks and, usually, it was football boys that got to drive the trucks. They had one summer that he had enough guys quit on him -- or doing something else-- that they had an empty truck. My friend was the equipment manager of the football team and he called me up and says; "We've got an empty truck if you want to drive it and make some money." Well, they gave me the Scarboro section in town, which had not been very productive. It was kind of interesting because for three years prior to that I had taught Vacation Bible School. We'd put a tent up over there and we'd have Vacation Bible School with all the children over there. One thing you had to understand about the black children and the white children is that the white children usually had a dime in their pocket. Black children never did. So, the white boys driving the trucks over there would go through ringing their bell and keep it running and the black children would run out to the curb to see what it was and then run back in to go get their money from their aunt or uncle or mom or grandma or somebody. Then they'd run back out and the truck would be gone. I discovered that if you go and ring the bell and sit at the corner it wouldn't be long before you had more business than you could stand. The second day I doubled my ice cream order and the guy said, "You've got to be kidding?" I said, "No." He said, "Nobody's ever sold that much off this truck." And I said, "Well, I did." He looked at my icebox and said, "Well, you did. It's all gone." Third day I doubled my order again and the fourth day I finally found out where my distribution level really was. Everybody couldn't believe I was making that kind of money off of that section.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the ice cream truck have a freezer in it? How was it built?
MR. WALLACE: It had a big old freezer on the back that just about filled the whole bed of the truck. It had a corrugated roof that was over it to, kind of, keep the rain and stuff from falling on top of that. Every night you plugged it in. In the morning when you went to pick up your ice cream they'd put some dry ice in it to hold it during the day. I don't remember there being a door on the truck. The trucks actually used more oil than they did gas.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were they a particular color?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah, they were red, old, beat-up, Ford trucks. They had to be early '40's or something.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how much money you made selling ice cream?
MR. WALLACE: I do. One week I made $125. Most money I ever made in a week in my teenage life.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That probably exceeded some people's salary out at the plant.
MR. WALLACE: Yeah it did. It was amazing because I had -- it was kind of funny because I had-- part of my route was out in the Scarboro section and part of it was off of Michigan Avenue. I had a lady over there. Every single day she'd come out. Every day she bought one cup of vanilla ice cream. I didn't have any other sales for that so I kept some for her because she'd come out. I guess I was the only person she saw all day long. She had asked, "Oh what do you got today?" And I'd have to say Popsicles, Fudgesicles, Dreamsicles, Brown Cows, Nutty Buttys, Push-Ups, Cho Chos, ice cream sandwiches, pints and quarts.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did she understand all of that?
MR. WALLACE: "Yeah, I'll have a cup of vanilla."
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you issue a spoon of any sort when you sold a cup of ice cream?
MR. WALLACE: Sure did. There was a standard little wooden spoon that you had a long strip of. That's the way they came, in a strip. You tore one off and it was sanitary and you'd give that with the cup of ice cream.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And the cup was made out of paper?
MR. WALLACE: Yep.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How was the lid attached?
MR. WALLACE: It was pressed in and it had a little lip on the thing that you just got a hold of and pulled the lid off.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall any other home people; salesman or milk delivery or anything like that that occurred during your childhood?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah, two things. One was the rolling store, which was always a joy to be able to go. Just the smell. It just had a wonderful aroma to the thing. That was probably rotten vegetables. Usually you had bread on it and, I think, it carried a little bit of milk. There were fresh vegetables. That was where you got fresh vegetables was off the rolling store. He'd come and park. I don't remember whether he had a bell or whether he had a horn. Everybody in the neighborhood knew where he was and so he'd park for a little while and everyone would go.
MR. HUNNICUTT: We were talking about the rolling stores a bit so describe what a rolling store is.
MR. WALLACE: It was an old school bus that had all the seats taken out of it. There were racks built down both sides of it to put different kinds of merchandise on it. You could get gum, fresh vegetables, and bread and there were several different items. I don't remember everything but it was pretty complete for something that you might just happen to be out of.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about Coke bottles? Did you ever get into Coke bottles and trade them in?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah. I guess people haven't changed much. They used to throw Coke bottles out like they throw out tin cans now. For the most part Coke bottles, in the beginning, you got a $0.02 deposit and then they finally went up to a nickel ($0.05). They were really worth something then. Sometimes we'd collect enough of them to go down any buy another Coke and take them down to the service station, or someplace, and trade them in. They were just like currency for us.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a personal ID badge when you were growing up in the early days?
MR. WALLACE: I'm told that I did, but I don't remember it. At one time, I know that my mother had a picture ID badge. Here is something. This was a residence identification pass the year that it was used. That was for my mother. And then this one, here, was issued to my grandmother but she never used it. She said she was coming to Oak Ridge. That was one of the good things about it. If you didn't want your mother-in-law to come you'd say, "I can't get you clearance."
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall anyone else visiting you when the gates were still up?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, my grandparents came quite often and my aunt. My aunt, eventually, moved here to Oak Ridge and Dad bought a house down the street for her to live in for a while before she died.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about them coming when you were gated?
MR. WALLACE: Most of the time we'd meet them at the gate. Sometimes we'd have their pass in hand. I remember Dad meeting them at the gates and handing them a pass so that they could get through. Their car was searched, of course, but most of the time when they came it was birthday time or Thanksgiving time or holiday time of some kind. More often than not they came to visit us at Christmas time when we lived here in Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what process your dad had to go through to get a pass?
MR. WALLACE: No, I wasn't familiar with that. I was too young to know an awful lot about what was going on. I have a number of pictures of them visiting with us on Pallas Road and then over here later on too.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they stay very many days?
MR. WALLACE: Usually 2-3 at the most. Sometimes it was just for a weekend, like on Thanksgiving holiday. They'd come, maybe, on Wednesday. Sometimes they didn't come until Thursday and then they'd stay till Sunday and go home to Chattanooga.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your family do any outings that took you out through the gates?
MR. WALLACE: Yes. Big Ridge State Park was a beautiful place to go. We'd go to Norris and visit over there. In the early '50's my grandfather, my dad, and my aunt bought a piece of property down at Sale Creek, Tennessee. Many of our weekends were taken up going down there and working on that place from about 1952 on.
MR. HUNNICUTT: About how old were you then?
MR. WALLACE: In '52, I was ten.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about going through and coming back through the gates?
MR. WALLACE: It was always very interesting to see these guys with -- I never saw anybody with a long gun-- but all of them had side arms. They were always well dressed. Nifty looking uniforms. Helmets on. Oftentimes one would stay at the door where the driver was while the other guard would either look in the truck or look under the hood or kind of glance around in the rest of the car.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I've heard stories about illegal alcohol being brought into the cities. Do you know anything about that?
MR. WALLACE: I guess, as an ex-preacher, I'm probably supposed to say “no” but I did. It was kind of funny because one of the noted things at Oak Ridge was that alcohol was illegal to have on a federal reservation but all you had to do to get it was to call the cab company. They delivered. Of course, they always brought it in a brown bag. One of the things that we liked to do as kids is one of those mischievous things. We'd call a cab company and have a pint delivered to somebody you knew did not drink and watch the conversation that went on between the cab driver and the resident.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your family have a phone during the early days of Oak Ridge?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, in fact we still have the same last four numbers. We have had it since 1946, the last four numbers. Our first telephone that we had, we had on Pallas Road, and the number was 5743. Later on they changed it to two letters and a number and then finally when we got area codes they centralized everything and that's what we've got now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you on a party line?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, I think everybody except the high mucky mucks at the plant were all on party lines.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me what a party line is like.
MR. WALLACE: It's sort of just like sitting in a theater and listening to everybody else talk. In fact, most of the time when you picked up the telephone -- everybody had a different ring. If you and I were on the party line you might have two short rings and I might have two long rings. Then if it was more than a two party line, sometimes a four party or a six party line. I don't remember any 10 party lines here. I lived on a 10 party line when I was in North Carolina one time and that was a hoot because once you connected and you were listening on the phone you could hear other people pick up. They were listening to find out what was going on.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Other than selling papers and ice cream and Coke bottles did you do anything else for money?
MR. WALLACE: Yep, I worked for Price Florist at one time. I worked for them delivering. I made wreaths, made boutonnieres, made corsages and delivered the flowers and things to folks. It was kind of interesting because when I went to work for Mr. Price he said, "Well, do you have any restrictions about what you can do?" I said, "Well, I just want to be through in time on Sunday morning to be able to go to church." He said, "What time?" I said, "Well, Sunday School starts at 10:00, if I'm through at 9:30." So they started delivering an hour earlier so that I could get through in time to go to church. We would drive to people's homes on Mother's Day and special occasions and put flowers behind the screen doors. People didn't know we'd been there till they got up and went to the door to get their paper, usually. But at four o'clock in the morning we were delivering flowers in Oak Ridge. We had a standing agreement with the Police Department, at that time. We would stop at stop signs and we would slow down at red lights. Nobody else on the road at that time anyway, but they knew we had a job that had to get done.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where is Price Florist located?
MR. WALLACE: It's located on the Turnpike. It's located right next to Martin Funeral Home.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about lightning bugs. As a kid, did you ever collect lightning bugs?
MR. WALLACE: We sure did. We always had a quart jar of lightning bugs in the refrigerator. The reason we did that was because they went dormant when they were cold and they kept a whole lot longer. It took an awful lot of lightning bugs to make enough to where they could weigh something. They paid us per bug and they figured there's so many and whatever it weighed. We would take them down here to this little house, that's still down there, where NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] is located right now. And that's where we took them. They did research on them to find out why they glowed in the dark.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you catch them?
MR. WALLACE: By hand. They were everywhere. They still are everywhere out here. They're not as many now as there used to be.
MR. HUNNICUTT: After Woodland School you attended Robertsville Junior High?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, we were there the first year that Robertsville opened. I was there my 7th and 8th grade. I was in the marching band. I've got a picture in my album that shows us marching in blue jeans and white shirts because we didn't have any uniforms. A little bit later on we got brand new uniforms. I was the luckiest marching band member, I guess, that ever existed. I went to Robertsville and we got brand new uniforms. Went to Oak Ridge High School we got brand new uniforms. When I ended up in UT I got brand new uniforms. Got custom fitted every time I got in the marching band.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Who was the band director at Robertsville?
MR. WALLACE: Let's see. I don't remember who it was but I don't think it was Steve Combs. Later on he became the band director of the high school the year after I graduated.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you notice -- the difference about going to Robertsville than Woodland?
MR. WALLACE: We changed classes. That was one of the big differences and that was when the schools started integrating. When I was at Robertsville, we had a long announcement that was made over the PA system explaining to us that the black children were going to be coming to school with us and that there were going to be some protestors about it and that we were to stay on the sidewalk and we were not to talk to anybody that we did not know. It was a very solemn circumstance. We did not have one incident. We had no problem with them coming into our school. Most of us were very helpful to them to help them find where they needed to go because they had never had a fine school like Robertsville was. They were very well welcomed.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So everyone got along pretty well?
MR. WALLACE: Yep. Then a little bit later on when I was in high school they bombed the Clinton High School. It was kind of interesting, and very sad. We had an empty school building here in Oak Ridge and we leased it to them for a dollar a year. The day that they came over here to start school the high school band went over and we played. I got my picture in LIFE magazine, the centerfold. Right in the centerfold of it there I am playing my cornet.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the song you played?
MR. WALLACE: No, I have no idea. I just remember it was kind of a sad but a happy occasion too.
MR. HUNNICUTT: After you left Robertsville Junior High you went to the high school that was located where?
MR. WALLACE: I went to the new high school. It had been open a couple of years, not much longer than that. That was in 1957. It was humongous, as far as we were concerned. That was the last year they had four years of high school there; the 9-12 grade. We went four years to Oak Ridge High School. Didn't fail a grade.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What were some of the courses you took in high school?
MR. WALLACE: Science, and Math. I took Typing. I took Home Economics too because those two classes had mostly girls in them.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you do in Home Economics?
MR. WALLACE: I became the teacher's pet because that teacher, Mrs. Stella Woody, was the same lady that I had in the fourth grade and in the fifth grade. She called me "Little Professor." I could already do everything they were trying to teach those girls to do. I could already open a can. I could cook an egg. I could sew an apron. I could do anything that they wanted me to do. I made an A in that class.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you the only boy in the class?
MR. WALLACE: It seemed like, to me, there were a couple of football players in there because they felt like that was an easy course to get through.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you active in any sports in the high school?
MR. WALLACE: No, not in the high school. I was in the marching band and that took most of my time. We practiced, almost, every day and then we had lots of trips that we took to away games and all and contests. We had a Cracker Jack band back in those days.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you travel back and forth?
MR. WALLACE: We went on Trailways buses. Interesting, in the four years of high school, we had the same bus drivers for every away game and trips. Those guys loved to go with the Oak Ridge High School band and we got to know them. They had a good time, we had a good time. It was just comforting to meet the same guys on it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall who the band director was?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, it was Gilbert Scarbrough. He retired from band directing the year that I graduated from high school, 1960.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was some of the other classes you took in high school?
MR. WALLACE: Let's see. I took two years of Latin to the chagrin of the Latin teacher that I had back then. I took-- I think there was a History class. There were four years of Science and four years of Mathematics and four years of English. I know I took Chemistry and Physics my senior year and I never encourage anybody to do that again. That was... I didn't even have a lunch period my senior year. Between classes I would eat lunch with the Chemistry teacher.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you required to take Physical Education in high school?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, we were. Sometimes it was very grueling and the wintertime when we couldn't get outside we did calisthenics for six weeks. I lost 30 pounds one six weeks during the calisthenics out there. Really slimmed down.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Who were some of the high school gym teachers?
MR. WALLACE: Don Bordinger was one of them. The basketball coach was -- was it. Was Ira Green one of them up there? Ms. Swayzee was one of the female teachers over there. The basketball coach -- that was such a grand fellow, Ben Martin. And of course, Jack Armstrong.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you feel that your education in the Oak Ridge school system was above the average education you would have gotten if you hadn't attended Oak Ridge school system?
MR. WALLACE: Absolutely, and I feel like it's still the same today. I'm glad I've got two grandchildren going through the system right now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: After you graduated from high school, what do you do as far as your educational career?
MR. WALLACE: I started out at David Lipscomb College in Nashville, Tennessee. I went from here on a music scholarship and a small academic scholarship. Went there with the idea of studying chemical engineering. Changed after one year, came back to University of Tennessee and went into business administration. In the meantime, J.C. Penney was trying to get me to go work with them full-time. I had worked with them for two or three years on a part-time basis and then I got invited not to come back to UT. I tell everybody I made the Dean's List twice. I made one Dean's List that's not published and then when I graduated I made the other Dean List, the one that is published. That year I was madly in love. It was a good year. I was in the marching band at UT. I had a good time there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let me back up a minute and ask you, do you remember when they dropped the bomb on Japan in 1945? Where were you when you heard that news?
MR. WALLACE: When that happened mother and I were living in Chattanooga because Dad was in the Navy at that time, stationed at the Great Lakes Training Center. I really don't remember anything about that. The first international event that I do remember was when we were living in this house and Stalin died.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the gate opening of the city?
MR. WALLACE: Oh, yes I remember that big, wonderful parade. We stood down here, just about where the Red Cross building is, and watched it on the Turnpike across from the -- I've got some 8mm movies of that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you attend any of the other functions other than the parade during that festivity?
MR. WALLACE: No, we just didn't particularly care for the crowds. But it was a big fun time and it was interesting to have the gates finally open.
MR. HUNNICUTT: In your estimation, how big were the crowds?
MR. WALLACE: I have no idea of estimating how many there were but they were lined all up and down the Turnpike. They were lined all up and down Tennessee Avenue through Jackson Square. The pictures that I’ve seen -- we didn't go all the way up there -- we saw them down on the Turnpike, but the pictures I've seen looked like there was hundreds and hundreds of people.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall some of the people that were in the parade, celebrity wise?
MR. WALLACE: Marie McDonald. Sweetheart of America, I think. I remember the guys on the horses. I don't remember who...
MR. HUNNICUTT: Rod Cameron?
MR. WALLACE: Rod Cameron was probably one of those but I think it was a sheriff's posse of some kind that was on the horses. I just always remember the bands that were playing and the thumping of the drums. That's probably what got me more interested in marching bands than anything.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Then after you graduated, where did you meet your wife to be?
MR. WALLACE: We met the year that I was at David Lipscomb College in Nashville, Tennessee. I had been active in the high school drama scene here at Oak Ridge High School and they had a forensic tournament at the school in Nashville. I signed up to help and ended up directing the freshman play and she had served two years as secretary in the law office. So she could type very well and we needed copies of scripts made and so she typed them up. That's really how we met, because of this play that I directed in my first year of college.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let me mention some things about places of interest and you tell me what you remember. The Snow White Drive-In.
MR. WALLACE: Oh, Snow White Drive -In; onion burgers. There were more onions on those than there was meat but they were so good. One of the places that I worked was the old hospital up there one summer, and then the new hospital one summer. I worked in the autopsy lab as an orderly. You know, you do this because I don't want to do it. That was my job. And keep a pot of coffee going. The first day that I was to do my first autopsy -- didn't know about it -- I had gone down to the Snow White and I had six of those burgers. They were so good. When I came back in Dr. Steffe who was the pathologist says, "Go get some scrubs on." I handled it very well. He surprised me.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what the Snow White looked like from inside?
MR. WALLACE: Very much like a Krystal. It was all greasy, I guess was the word for it. I don't remember a whole lot because most of the time I drove up and had them delivery it out to the car.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Could you drive around the Snow White?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah, they had the carry out trays and all of that. They had carhops.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So they brought the food out. The carhop brought the food out on a tray?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they attach the tray to the car in some way?
MR. WALLACE: You rolled you window up about halfway and there was a lip that hung over and that was good. When you got through you tooted your horn and they came and got it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about the dental offices in Oak Ridge? Do you remember using any of the dentist's?
MR. WALLACE: Yep. We used Dr. John Burgess who was one of the original dentists that came here. The old medical building was right there, next to the Snow White. The Physician's Plaza, is what it's called now, is in the same location of where that was. It was just, like an old Army barracks. It had those linoleum floors everywhere and you could hear "clunk, clunk, clunk " coming down the stairs. I still use Dr. John's son. Back then we called him Johnny and I still call him Johnny because I'm older than he is.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you think that the dental service and the hospital service was above the average during the early days, and even today?
MR. WALLACE: I think it was very adequate. I don't know that it would be on par today because there's so much more equipment that's available and so many more good medications. The first summer that I worked at the hospital in the laboratory, part of my responsibilities were carrying some of the isotopes that came in and down to the ORAU Hospital that used to be there. That's been torn down now. That was the concrete block portion of the hospital. That was like going into a horror picture. They were just learning how to treat cancer. Everything was experimental. People were burned so badly with stuff. They were going to die anyway and there wasn't any cure. They were trying to do what they could to prolong their life with these isotopes and radiation treatments. It was a real sad place to be, to visit those folks. But our cancer treatments today are due to what they learned back then. Even as terrible as it seemed at the time, today's treatments of cancer are just marvelous.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, the development of the atomic bomb is a spin-off of the treatment that we have today for cancer and other things?
MR. WALLACE: Our treatment today is a spin off from the development of the atomic bomb. It's just backwards from that. Because radio isotopes that were discovered. A lot of it was theoretical to start with and eventually, as time went on, they found them. They figured they might be there but they didn't know what they could do with them. Then they found out, through different exposures, that they could treat different things with these radioisotopes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about bowling alleys, did you ever visit the bowling alleys?
MR. WALLACE: Oh, yeah that was one of the most fun places to be in Oak Ridge. Ceilings were down low and most of them were in basements. The one I remember most was the one over here in Jackson Square that's behind the health food store that's there. The steps go up to the second level and there's, kind of, a little alley way that goes down and the bowling alley was in the corner of that. It would always seem so dark and so foreboding to go in there. The noise was horrendous because there wasn't any place for it to go. It was a lot of fun.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember doctor's making house calls?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah, when my sister got sick I remember Dr. Preston coming to the house.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about clubs and things of that nature. Did you belong to any clubs when you were in high school?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, I was in the Maskers, which was the play group. My grandson's in that now. He just finished up being in his first play. That was a lot of fun. Dr. McLaughlin down at the Parkway Cardiologist -- he and I were in a play together. It was his senior year and my freshman year, I think, or sophomore -- something like that. Anyway, we were in a play called "Harvey."
MR. HUNNICUTT: Moving back to when you met your future wife, when did you get married?
MR. WALLACE: We got married in Old Hickory, Tennessee. That's where she was raised. The fellow that was the minister there was also a math teacher at Lipscomb College. I never did have him and I don't know if she ever had him in class or not but he was a busy fellow the night that we got married. He had three weddings that evening. He'd pronounce one and then jump in his car and run to the next to pronounce them and go to the third, I guess.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When did you and your wife come to Oak Ridge?
MR. WALLACE: I tell everybody I moved to Oak Ridge three times. We moved here in 1944, moved away early '45, moved back January of '46, and then I left in 1960 to go off to college and then go to work and then go back to school to finish up and get a degree in Bible and Speech. We moved back to Oak Ridge in 2004.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you first live?
MR. WALLACE: In Oak Ridge?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes.
MR. WALLACE: First place I lived in Oak Ridge was the flat top...
MR. HUNNICUTT: No, I mean when you got married.
MR. WALLACE: When we got married; Hickory, North Carolina. I was working for the J.C. Penney Company.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Then how did you get to Oak Ridge?
MR. WALLACE: After three years working at Penney's in North Carolina, I left them to go back to school and finish and get my degree in Bible and Speech. Then I preached for 42 years in a full-time capacity. Started out in Georgia, moved from Georgia to Kentucky. Was in Barnesville, Georgia to Owingsville, Kentucky. Moved from Owingsville, Kentucky to Decherd, Tennessee in a place called Oak Grove outside of there. Moved from there to Sevierville, Tennessee. Moved from Sevierville to Newport, from Newport to Fayetteville, Tennessee. Then from Fayetteville, Tennessee to Somerset, Kentucky. That's when I retired in 2004.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You came to live in this house in what year?
MR. WALLACE: 2004. Dad was in the Retirement Center. The house had sat empty here for three years, or unused for three years, and was going downhill. About that time my sister's husband took a job in Washington, DC, and that was going to leave nobody here to look after Dad. Since I had just retired, it just befell my lot to come back to Oak Ridge to look after him. So, I approached him with the idea. My sister and I both, together, approached him about the idea of buying his house. He was agreeable to it. He said, "Whatever it was appraised for I'll take that." So we had it appraised and I paid him for the house. Then we spent almost as much money to renovate it as we did to pay for it. So we moved in here in February of 2004.
MR. HUNNICUTT: This particular block Woodland home, what type of heat did it have in it originally?
MR. WALLACE: Originally, like most of them, it had coal heat.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me a little bit about the churches in Oak Ridge in the early days that you remember.
MR. WALLACE: In the beginning there was only one church building in Oak Ridge that was Chapel on the Hill. All the groups used it, just at different times. There were several church groups that met in the schools. The church that we attended is now the New York Avenue Church of Christ. We, at first, attended in Pine Valley and used their gymnasium as an auditorium. Then we moved to Cedar Hill, while this building that they stay in currently was being constructed, and then moved from Cedar Hill to the building that's on New York Avenue. Several of the church groups in town did something very similar. There was a time in which the city said, “We will give you what you think you need.” There are lots that are available in town. At that time, I believe, Oak Ridge had finally become a city. They said we will give any church that wants a piece of property to build a building on we will give that property to them. That's how they ended up on New York Avenue. Others like the Episcopal church and Methodist church that are down here got big lots and they've been there for quite considerable period of time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Bill, is there anything you'd like to talk about that we haven't discussed?
MR. WALLACE: Yeah, I'd like to talk about my paper route just a minute. It was very interesting because we go back and touch on something that you said earlier about the different people from different places that lived here at Oak Ridge. On my paper route, I had to know a little bit of three different languages to deliver papers. I had people from England, which was a different language from American. We had people from India. We had people from Bangladesh. We had people from France. We had people from Germany. We had people from Sweden that were here, many of which could not speak real good English but they could read English and so that's why they wanted the newspaper.
It was always interesting to notice the different customs that they had. One of the fellows that I grew up with in high school, his father was the assistant rabbi for the Jewish synagogue that was here. He and I have continued our friendship over the years. He lives in Alabama now and we communicate once and a while; still together. This was a melting pot. This was an interesting place to live. Wonderful place to grow up. There was, literally, no crime here. Nobody locked their docks, even at night. Screen doors were all that we had.
We didn't know what a storm door was in those days because nobody had air conditioning. You had to open windows and let the breeze blow through. You got to meet very interesting people from all over, from different places. Even on this street here people from many different places in the United States, all with different backgrounds and all with a different story to tell.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your wife's maiden name when you married her?
MR. WALLACE: She was Judy Sam Cox. Her mother and dad -- we have the cabinet there in the kitchen that they had when they first got married.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you have children?
MR. WALLACE: I've got three children. I have a son that teaches at Auburn University in Montgomery, Alabama. I have a daughter that lives here. She works at the Christian bookstore. And I have a daughter that lives at Thompson Station. Her husband's in the banking business. I have 10 grandchildren.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What are your daughter's names?
MR. WALLACE: The one that lives here, her name is Wendy Potter. The daughter that lives in Thompson Station, her name is Amy Lively. And our son is named Sam Wallace.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Bill, what directed you to become a minister?
MR. WALLACE: When I went to North Carolina working for the J.C. Penney Company, I was a hot shot for them. I was supposed to be a trainee. I took over the basement store of the Penney's up there that was about to go under. The basement store carried the rest of the store for three years. Worked with the same number of people, same floor space, and we just increased the sales enough to make the store profitable.
While we were there we found the church very weak. We got married in November and in December they fired the preacher that was there, where we were going to church. For three years, we couldn't get anybody to come for what we could pay. My purpose was to go back to school, go back to the Carolinas to preach. But it never opened to us again in all of those years of fulltime preaching. I saw a need of people that were competent to help.
There were a lot of folks that were just -- and you've probably met some of them too-- they were preaching but they shouldn't be. They just really shouldn't be. I had the capability to stand in front of people and to deliver a lesson and I went back to school to get my degree to hang on the wall. I did that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your wife like Oak Ridge when you first came here?
MR. WALLACE: Oh, yes. Still does. Again, it’s still a very interesting place to live. Even though we don't have a Downtown anymore it's a wonderful place. It's a great neighborhood that's here. It's quiet.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Are either one of you involved in any outside activities?
MR. WALLACE: Yes, she's been involved with the art community over here. She's taken a couple of different classes. She painted this picture that’s on the wall. She is involved with -- we both help with the schools, somewhat, because of our grandchildren. I'm involved with a program with the Highland View Church of Christ. On Thursdays we hand out food to folks that need it. We both teach Bible classes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, you certainly lived a full life, especially here in Oak Ridge and this interview has been a very interesting interview. I know it will be a very interesting interview for someone to read and see how life was in Oak Ridge in those days.
MR. WALLACE: Got one more thing, just thought of. The boardwalks in Oak Ridge. The clumpity, clumpity, clump that people made when they went up and down the streets. The money that was lost between the slats and the rats that lived underneath the boardwalks.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about the mud, since we're talking about boardwalks.
MR. WALLACE: That brings to memory one more thing, too. The first paved street in Oak Ridge was Tennessee Avenue. It was paved from where it starts at New York Avenue all the way past Townsite, which is Jackson Square. They kept everybody off of it for three days and when they let everybody back on it they covered it up with mud. Every road that came to it was either muddy or dusty and gravely and so it just caked the road in mud back through there. But everyone wanted to ride on that road. Sometimes cars would get stuck in the mud and they would just go off and leave the car stuck where it was because you couldn't get it out until it dried up some.
MR. HUNNICUTT: It's certainly been my pleasure to interview you, and I thank you very much or your time.
MR. WALLACE: Well, thank you. I've enjoyed it too.
[End of Interview]
[Editor’s Note: This transcript has been edited at Mr. Wallace’s request. The corresponding audio and video components have remained unchanged.]